{"id":304900,"date":"2025-12-08T11:20:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T11:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/304900\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T11:20:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T11:20:08","slug":"joey-barton-sentencing-hearing-for-grossly-offensive-social-media-posts-under-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/304900\/","title":{"rendered":"Joey Barton sentencing hearing for &#8216;grossly offensive&#8217; social media posts under way"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Eni Aluko says &#8216;actions online do not come without consequences&#8217;published at 10:29 GMT<\/p>\n<p>10:29 GMT<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-8kvzjk-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/6b2da070-3cdd-43a6-bfc4-354ff248126a.jpg.webp.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/>Thomas Mackintosh<br \/>BBC News<\/p>\n<p>      <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Eni Aluko\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/324c765d-faee-4b86-a769-f053fef7fe49.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"3500\" height=\"2333\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, PA Media<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After Joey Barton was convicted, football pundit and ex-England star Eni Aluko said she was &#8220;glad justice had been served&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Barton compared Aluko and commentator Lucy Ward to serial killers Fred and Rose West.<\/p>\n<p>Quote Message<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Social media is a cesspit<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Eni Aluko<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DQw8D5NDMbh\/\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">In a statement, external<\/a> released after Barton&#8217;s conviction, qualified lawyer Aluko said: &#8220;Too many people feel they can say things to others they wouldn&#8217;t dream of saying in real life under the guise of freedom of speech.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;This is a reminder that actions online do not come without consequences. The messages directed at me, Lucy Ward and Jeremy Vine by Joey Barton were deeply distressing and had a real damaging impact on my life and career.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Barton also posted that Aluko was in the &#8220;Joseph Stalin\/Pol Pot category&#8221;, saying she had &#8220;murdered hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of football fans&#8217; ears&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Jurors found him not guilty on the comparison to the 20th Century dictators and the Wests, but ruled a superimposed image of Ward and Aluko &#8211; imposed on the Wests who tortured and raped a number of women between 1967 and 1987 &#8211; was grossly offensive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Barton was also convicted over a post in which he claimed Aluko was &#8220;only there to tick boxes&#8221; as he criticised diversity schemes.<\/p>\n<p>    <script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eni Aluko says &#8216;actions online do not come without consequences&#8217;published at 10:29 GMT 10:29 GMT Thomas MackintoshBBC News&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-304900","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}