Barton’s conviction turns the internet’s rough banter into a matter for criminal law.
CINDY HARPER
Joey Barton, the former Premier League midfielder turned online commentator, has been convicted by a Liverpool jury of six counts of sending “grossly offensive electronic communications with intent to cause distress or anxiety.”
The case, just one in the many free speech cases in the UK these days, focused on a series of social media posts Barton made in early 2024, targeting television host Jeremy Vine and football pundits Lucy Ward and Eni Aluko.
Prosecutors argued that his posts were deliberate communications intended to upset and degrade.
After a televised FA Cup game in January, Barton compared Ward and Aluko to convicted serial killers Fred and Rose West, and posted a doctored image with their faces superimposed onto those of the notorious couple.
He also accused Aluko of having “murdered hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of football fans’ ears,” likened her to Stalin and Pol Pot, and claimed she was only employed “to tick boxes,” calling DEI “a load of shit” and linking her role in football commentary to “BLM/George Floyd nonsense.”
He also made comments about broadcaster Jeremy Vine. After Vine asked whether Barton had suffered a brain injury, Barton responded by calling him “bike nonce,” and asked if he had been to Epstein’s island.
(The term “nonce” is a British slang term for pedophile.)
One post read, “Might as well own up now because I’d phone the police if I saw you near a primary school on ya bike.”
Barton denied that the messages were meant to cause distress. In court, he described the posts as “dark and stupid humor,” claiming he had been attempting to make serious points in a provocative way.
He said the phrase “bike nonce” was part of an inside joke among people who don’t cycle, not an actual accusation of child abuse.
He further described the prosecution as politically motivated, accusing the state of trying to silence voices that challenge dominant narratives.
The jury convicted Barton on six counts but found him not guilty on another six, which related to different social media posts earlier in the year. Sentencing is expected at a later date.
Prosecutor Peter Wright KC told the jury that Barton’s online conduct went far beyond what society should accept. “Mr. Barton is not the victim here,” he alleged.
“He is not the free speech crusader that he would like to paint himself to be…He is just simply an undiluted, unapologetic bully. A little bully who takes pleasure sitting there with his phone in his hand and then posting these slurs.”
He added that Ward, Aluko, and Vine were “collateral damage of his self-promotion.”
Defending Barton, Simon Csoka KC urged the jury to reflect carefully on the legal and societal implications of criminalizing offensive speech. “If the boundary is set far too low,” Csoka said, “then free speech is completely worthless.”
He acknowledged that Barton’s words were likely to offend, but argued that this alone should not be grounds for a criminal conviction in a democracy that values open debate.
Barton’s conviction for posting “grossly offensive” comments online should worry anyone who still believes in free speech.
Britain’s courts have now decided that being offensive on the internet can land you in the dock, and that should chill every citizen who values the right to speak freely.
Criminalizing words because they hurt feelings is a dangerous precedent. The right to free expression only matters when it protects speech that others dislike. Easy, polite speech needs no defense.
What matters is protecting the rough, unpopular, even stupid opinions that test the limits of public tolerance.
If Barton had genuinely harassed someone, the law already provides clear remedies.
But he was not convicted of harassment or libel. He was charged with being “grossly offensive.” That phrase is elastic, subjective, and dependent entirely on the listener’s reaction.
Today it applies to Joey Barton; tomorrow it could apply to anyone who makes a joke, shares a meme, or criticizes a powerful institution or public figure in the wrong tone. Britain increasingly punishes expression on the basis of offense, not intent or harm.
Police have investigated people for jokes, song lyrics, and even social media posts taken out of context. The Barton ruling adds another brick to that wall of censorship. A society that cannot tolerate offensive words is not protecting its citizens; it is infantilizing them.
This article (Joey Barton and the New Heresy of Being Offensive In The UK) was created and published by Reclaim the Net and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Cindy Harper
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