Joey Barton ‘beat up wife until friend pulled him away to stop attack’

Former footballer Joey Barton kicked his wife in the head during a row at their family home, a court has heard.

Barton, 42, is accused of assaulting Georgia Barton, 38, in Kew, south-west London in June 2021.

Prosecutor Helena Duong said the pair had been drinking with two other couples when they started arguing after Barton threatened to fight his wife’s dad and brother.

She told Westminster Magistrates’ Court the ex-Man City and QPR midfielder ‘grabbed [Georgia] and pushed her to the ground and kicked her in the head’.

Their pals were said to have tried to pull Barton off her but he allegedly ‘threw’ one of them off and warned: ‘Don’t disrespect me.’  

Mrs Barton called the police shortly after 11pm on June 2 to ‘report she had been hit by her husband’, the court heard.

The pair had both drunk ‘four or five bottles of wine’, a previous hearing was told.

During the 999 call played to the court, a tearful Mrs Barton told the operator: ‘Me husband’s just hit me in the house.

‘He’s in the house, I’m outside.’

Asked if anything similar had happened before, she said: ‘No, it’s the first time’, adding that she had been hit ‘in the face’.

When police arrived at around 11:30pm, Mrs Barton told them: ‘I’ve been pushed down and kicked about and stuff.

‘He said he was going to fight with my brother and my dad.’

A police officer asked Mrs Barton if she wanted to use an ice pack for the ‘bump’ on her head, the court heard.

Barton was arrested at about midnight in his bedroom, where he had been asleep, and was still drunk, the trial was told.

The couple are still married and living together, the court heard.

The former footballer, of Widnes in Cheshire, was due to face trial at a magistrates’ court in 2022, but the case was adjourned after Mrs Barton sent a letter to prosecutors retracting her allegations.

A judge then ordered that proceedings be paused over concerns a trial would be unfair to Barton after prosecutors said they did not plan to ask Mrs Barton to give evidence in court.

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Stephen Parkinson, appealed against the decision at the High Court in London, with barristers claiming at a hearing that a fair trial could go ahead.

In a judgment in June, two senior judges ruled in the DPP’s favour and said Barton should face a trial over the allegations in front of a different judge.

His career and life have been marked by numerous controversial incidents.

Last year, broadcaster Jeremy Vine sued him for libel and harassment over 14 online posts, including one where he called Mr Vine a ‘big bike nonce’ and a ‘pedo defender’ on X.

Earlier this year, he appeared in court charged with sending offensive messages to Vine and commentator Lucy Ward.

He was stripped of his QPR captaincy in 2012 having been sent off during Manchester City’s dramatic final-day 3-2 win over QPR after elbowing Carlos Tevez and, as he left the pitch, Barton kicked Sergio Aguero before aiming a headbutt at Vincent Kompany.

Barton denies a single charge of assault by beating, and the trial continues.

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