The former footballer Joey Barton has been handed a 12-week suspended prison sentence after being found guilty of assaulting his wife at their family home in south-west London in June 2021.
The 42-year-old pushed Georgia Barton to the floor before kicking her in the head during a drunken row at their family home which left her with a lump on her forehead and a bleeding nose, a court previously heard.
Two other couples were at the house when the argument occurred, with friends stepping in to pull Barton away from his wife.
Barton previously told the court he had argued with his wife, but he denied that anything “physical” had happened.
On Tuesday, at Westminster magistrates court, chief magistrate Paul Goldspring rejected Barton’s account of events as “vague” as he convicted him of a single charge of assault by beating after a two-day trial.
The trial – which was originally due to be heard in 2022 but delayed when Georgia Barton retracted her allegations – heard that the 38-year-old called the police shortly after 11pm to “report she had been hit by her husband” in Kew, south-west London.
During the 999 call played to the court, a tearful Mrs Barton told the call handler: “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”.
After police arrived at about 11.30pm, an officer offered to use an ice pack for the bump on her head. Georgia 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.”
Prosecutor Helena Duong said during the trial: “There had been a verbal disagreement about a family matter.”
Barton “grabbed her and pushed her to the ground and kicked her in the head”, Duong said, adding that as a friend tried to intervene, Barton “threw” him off and said: “Don’t disrespect me.”
He was arrested at about midnight in his bedroom, where he had been asleep, and was still drunk, the trial was told. He did not comment when questioned by police.
Giving evidence, Barton said he had argued with his wife after their friends got into a disagreement.
“That led to us having a disagreement. I stupidly took my mate’s side, I said his wife was out of order,” he told the court. “We just got into petty name calling. We ended up getting a bit more agitated and were close to each other.”
A friend had come between him and his wife to separate them, said Barton, but he denied that anything “physical” had happened.
Duong asked Barton: “Are you someone that on occasion might lose your temper?”
“Yep,” the former footballer replied.
Asked if he had kicked his wife, he said no, before adding: “If I kicked someone in the head there would be a lot more damage than what’s alleged in this case.”
The court heard that the couple are still married and living together. An original trial scheduled for 2022 was adjourned after Georgia Barton wrote to prosecutors and said her injuries had been caused by accident when a friend moved in to separate the pair.
“I’m not a victim … I want to move on with my life,” she said.
Prosecutors said they did not plan to ask her to give evidence in court, and a judge paused proceedings citing concerns that a trial would be unfair to Barton.
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Stephen Parkinson, appealed against the decision at the high court in London. 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.