Joey Barton appeals suspended sentence after being spared jail over ‘offensive tweets’ geared toward Jeremy Vine, Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward – as he vows to combat for ‘free expression’

Joey Barton has announced that he is appealing his conviction after being spared jail over ‘offensive tweets’ aimed at Jeremy Vine, Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward.

The former footballer was sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for 18 months, at Liverpool Crown Court on Monday after a judge found that he had carried out a ‘campaign’ of ‘grossly offensive’ social media posts between January and March 2024, with some deemed ‘racially aggravated’.

Andrew Menary KC, Recorder of Liverpool, told Barton, 43, that his attack on Aluko, comparing her to serial killer Rose West, was both ‘racially aggravated’ and sexist, while his posts claiming that broadcaster Vine was a paedophile were ‘deliberately harmful’, as was his attack on Ward.

Barton took to social media on Thursday to announce that he has appealed the conviction in defence of ‘free expression’.

‘My appeal is now formally under way,’ Barton wrote on social media platform X, formerly Twitter. ‘I reject this conviction, and the questions it raises about free expression reach far beyond me.

‘I’ve stood by that principle my whole life, and I won’t step away from it now. But I’ll respect the legal process now in motion.

‘I’m confident this will be put right.

‘Thank you to everyone who has stood up and spoken out in good faith.

‘When the appeal is complete, I’ll speak openly and in full.’

The post comes after Barton, who had faced being jailed for up to two years, told the BBC following his sentencing on Monday: ‘If I could turn back the clock, I would. I never meant to hurt anyone. It was a joke that got out of hand.’

He added: ‘Nobody wants to go to jail.’

Barton, who was unanimously convicted last month on six counts of sending electronic communication which were grossly offensive with intent to cause distress or anxiety, stared ahead in the dock as the judge told him that had undertaken ‘a sustained campaign of online abuse that was targeted and extreme’.

Capitalising on the 2.8million X followers he had when embarking on his campaign, he had ‘actively encouraged others to join in the abuse,’ the judge said.

In addition to the suspended sentence, Barton was also issued with restraining orders, forbidding him to contact Vine, Aluko or Ward for two years, ordered to pay £23,419 costs and undertake 200 hours of unpaid community service. 

The ex-Newcastle United player announced shortly after his conviction that he was stepping away from X and appears to have used this to help mitigate his sentence. 

The court heard that he has also declared in interviews with experts preparing a sentencing report for this case that he has ‘long-standing difficulties with alcohol which has contributed to difficulties in the past.’ He also told them he has had ‘childhood trauma and depression’ which has contributed to ‘a tendency to deal with any challenge with aggression.’ 

The judge was told that Barton had six previous convictions, including affray and battery in 2008 and assault occasioning actual bodily harm in the same year, but did not view these convictions as relevant to sentencing in this case.  

Judge Menary told him: ‘You (have said) that you have recently taken steps to moderate your online behaviour. Only time will tell whether this resolve endures, or whether your desire to preset yourself as some kind of social commentator – or perhaps more straightforwardly, your desire to drive engagement and subscriptions to your podcast, will lead you to repeat conduct of this kind.

‘In this digital age, social media platforms like X amplify voices exponentially, allowing pubic figures like you to reach vast audiences instantly. This power brings responsibility.’ Tweets with such levels of abuse as his had ‘forfeited’ any argument about freedom of speech, the judge said.

In a victim impact statement read out in court, Aluko described Barton’s comparison of her as ‘the most abhorrent, extreme and offensive criticism I’ve ever experienced’ – designed, as she saw it, to create an image of her as ‘undeserving unfavourable, disliked, discredited and hated in the eyes of football fans.’

She said: ‘I’ve been too scared to leave my home and have contact security services to add extra security to my home. 

‘I fear those incited by him will find out where I live. He speaks of living nearby and that heightens my fear. 

‘The fact my name can be Googled and attached to the West serial killers makes me sick to the core.’

In her impact statement, Ward, 51, said: ‘I will never be able to adequately explain the fear, humiliation and pain I have felt. It has not only upended my professional reputation but my life as well.’ 

She pointed out that the post comparing her to Rose West had been viewed 3.5million times. ‘A tweet likening me to one of the worst serial killers this country has seen is an abomination.’

She added: ‘The knowledge that someone with such a background has weaponised his fanbase against me has filled me with a dread I just cannot escape.

‘I am afraid when in my house. I am afraid when I am in my community. I am afraid at the stadiums where I work. I feel exposed and vulnerable. 

‘My family are afraid for my safety. This has left me questioning my own worth. I used to look forward to games. 

‘The incessant bullying by the defendant has destroyed the job I love.’