Disgraced footballer Joey Barton has been found guilty of pushing his wife to the ground and ‘kicking her in the head’ during a drunken row – but has been spared jail. 

The former Man City midfielder, 42, left Georgia Barton, 36, with a ‘golf ball’ sized-lump on her head after threatening to fight her brother and father, a court heard.

In a tearful 999 call played to the court after the attack at the couple’s west London home in June 2021, Mrs Barton said her husband ‘just hit me in the house’.

She was filmed on police body-worn cameras telling officers she had been ‘pushed down and kicked about’ as her children slept upstairs. 

In February 2022 Mrs Barton wrote to the Crown Prosecution Service to say she no longer supported the case. The couple are still married. 

But last year the High Court decided Barton should still face trial.

Wife beater Barton has now been found guilty of assault following a trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court and was given a 12-week suspended prison sentence.

Convicting the ex-footballer, Judge Paul Goldspring said he believed Barton and his wife had lied to the court about what happened that night.

‘I believe the veracity of the first account and it is supported by other evidence,’ he said. ‘The account on the telephone in the 999 call and to the attending officer is true.

‘I reject the account by Mrs Barton over eight months later and repeated in the witness box by her.’

The judge said a later explanation put forward by Mrs Barton, that she had sustained the injuries accidentally, was ‘unbelievable’.

He added the couple had contradicted themselves during their evidence in trial, because ‘they were not being truthful about what happened’.

The court heard Mrs Barton had called police to say she had been assaulted by the former Bristol Rovers manager at their home in Kew, west London on June 2 2021.

The sickening attack reportedly happened after the pair had drunk ‘four or five bottles of wine’. 

Mrs Barton said it started ‘over like a disagreement over our families and stuff’ and said she had been ‘pushed down and kicked about and stuff.’

Barton then ‘grabbed [Georgia] and pushed her to the ground and kicked her in the head’, the court heard.  

Afterwards, an officer at the scene was heard telling a colleague Mrs Barton had a ‘good lump on the side of her head’.

A second piece of body-worn footage showed Mrs Barton confirm her account to a different police officer.

She told an officer that Barton ‘said he was gonna fight with my uncle and my dad’ before she was allegedly assaulted.

Barton arrived at Westminster Magistrates’ Court today, carrying a copy of Christopher Hitchens’s book Arguably.

The book contains 107 essays on a variety of political and cultural topics from the late British author. 

Giving evidence in January the former midfielder told the court he had been ‘out the house for about seven and half hours’ with his friends on the day in question.

He said two other sets of parents and their children were visiting his home for a ‘staycation’.

Barton said he got into a ‘verbal altercation’ with his wife which ended up with things ‘getting a bit more agitated and getting quite close to each other.’

‘I think I’d stupidly said something about her dad or her brothers or something like that’, Barton said.

He insisted at no time had he assaulted his wife.

Barton said he could tell his wife was drunk but said he had never seen her drink four bottles of wine on her own.

‘Girls – women – drink wine differently to how lads drink’, he told the court.

Asked about his wife’s demeanour in the body-worn footage, he said: ‘I did think she looked worse for wear.

‘She didn’t look like she does when she’s sober.’

Prosecutor Helen Duong told the ex-footballer: ‘I suggest that the truth of the matter is on June 2 2021 is that you got into a heated argument with your wife Ms Barton, and you grabbed her, pushed her to the ground and you kicked her in the head.

‘And you kicked her in the head hard enough to cause the injury that’s on her forehead.’

Barton replied: ‘If I kicked someone in the head it’ll do a lot more damage than what’s alleged in this case.’

He said it was ‘flip-flop weather’ at the time and he had left his shoes on the decking.

In her letter dated February 17 2022 Mrs Barton said she had ‘made a 999 call to report I had been assaulted by my husband Joseph Barton.’

She said she was ‘asked if I wished to make a formal complaint to which I declined – saying I did not wish for any complaint to be made.

‘Later that morning the police attended to my London address and asked me again to make a formal complaint. I again declined and did not wish to support the prosecution.

‘I told the officer I was drinking heavily.

‘From midday onwards I had consumed more than four bottles of wine.’

In her letter she claimed her account was ‘borne out of what my friends had been saying to me.’

She described a ‘long drinking session of which all adult presents were engaged in’ and wrote that ‘the blow to my head had to have been caused by one of my friends.’

‘The story fed to me by one of my friends was to deflect away from the fact that, while arguing with Joseph one of my friends must have accidentally caused him to elbow me whilst trying to take me away from Joseph and I shouting.

‘My clear recollection now is Joseph did not assault me, I was just very angry with him at the time.

‘I do not support this prosecution at all and have said from the outset that I do not.

‘My relationship with my husband is a very good one, it has always been a good one.

‘Please accept my word: I am not a victim, I have never been a victim of violence by Joseph.’

She added that the proceedings resulted from a ‘heavy drinking session’ and had been ‘blown out of all proportion.’

Barton, now of Widnes, denies assault by beating.

He was sacked as Bristol Rovers manager in 2023 following a poor run of results.

Barton also played for QPR and Burnley. He made one appearance for England in a friendly against Spain in 2017.

He retired from playing in 2018 and has also managed Fleetwood Town in League One.

Last year, broadcaster Jeremy Vine sued Barton for libel and harassment over 14 posts on X.

He had called Mr Vine a ‘big bike nonce’ and a ‘pedo defender’.

Senior District Judge Paul Goldspring is due to give his verdict later today (tues) after hearing closing submissions from barristers on both sides.

The hearing continues.