{"id":181329,"date":"2025-12-08T16:33:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T16:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/181329\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T16:33:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T16:33:07","slug":"joey-barton-receives-suspended-sentence-over-offensive-social-media-posts-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/181329\/","title":{"rendered":"Joey Barton receives suspended sentence over offensive social media posts \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Former footballer Joey Barton has been spared jail after sending grossly offensive social media posts about broadcaster Jeremy Vine and TV football pundits Lucy Ward and Eni Aluko.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Last month a jury at Liverpool Crown Court found Barton (43), had \u201ccrossed the line between free speech and a crime\u201d with six posts on X.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Following a televised FA Cup tie in January 2024 between Crystal Palace and Everton he likened Ward and Aluko to the \u201cFred and Rose West of football commentary\u201d and went on to superimpose their faces on to a photograph of the serial murderers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In another post about Aluko, Barton said: \u201cOnly there to tick boxes. DEI [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion] is a load of s**t. Affirmative action. All off the back of the BLM\/<a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/george-floyd\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/george-floyd\/\">George Floyd<\/a> nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The former Manchester City, Newcastle United and Marseille player was found not guilty of six other allegations that he sent a grossly offensive electronic communication with intent to cause distress or anxiety between January and March 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Jurors cleared Barton, of Widnes, Cheshire, over the commentary analogy with the Wests but ruled the superimposed image was grossly offensive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Giving evidence, Barton, who managed Fleetwood Town and Bristol Rovers, said he believed he was the victim of a \u201cpolitical prosecution\u201d and denied his aim was \u201cto get clicks and promote himself\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">At Liverpool Crown Court on Monday, judge Andrew Menary KC sentenced Barton to six months in custody, suspended for 18 months. \u2013 PA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former footballer Joey Barton has been spared jail after sending grossly offensive social media posts about broadcaster Jeremy&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,3405,112],"class_list":["post-181329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}