Court heard how Joey Barton ‘pushed his wife to the floor before kicking her in the head’

A court has heard that Joey Barton pushed his wife to the floor before kicking her in the head during a drunken row at their family home.

Georgia Barton had been left with a lump on her forehead and a bleeding nose after the alleged assault, and while Barton admitted getting into an argument with his wife, he denied that anything physical happened.

This case relates to an incident at Joey Barton’s London home near Kew Gardens in June 2021, when he was manager of Bristol Rovers.

At the time, the court was shown police body cam footage and heard audio from the 999 call made by Georgia Barton to police in which she said she’d been pushed the ground and kicked in the head by her husband. They called her she suffered a a bleeding nose and a lump on her head the size of a golf ball.

Joey Barton kicked his wife in the head during a drunken row at their home, a court has heard

A tearful 999 call has captured the moment the former footballer's wife Georgia made the allegations https://t.co/XG7cx6JTlW pic.twitter.com/h7OqgoGORd

— Mirror Football (@MirrorFootball) January 24, 2025

Mrs Barton told the operator: ‘Me husband’s just hit me in the house. He’s in the house, I’m outside.’

Friends had to intervene in the argument between the pair, with Joey Barton being pulled away from his wife, prosecutors say.

The arguing had started after Barton threatened to fight his wife’s brother and father, Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard.

‘There had been a verbal disagreement about a family matter,’ prosecutor Helena Duong said.

Barton ‘grabbed her and pushed her to the ground and kicked her in the head’

Barton ‘threw’ a friend off and said ‘don’t disrespect me’, the trial heard.

Mrs Barton called the police shortly after 11pm to ‘report she had been hit by her husband’ after they both had drunk ‘four or five bottles of wine’, a previous hearing was told.

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

‘He’s in the house, I’m outside.’

When questioned 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, she 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.’

In bodycam footage played Mrs Barton says: ‘He’s got [my] head (and) pushed me down.’

The officer at the scene told a colleague that Ms Barton had a ‘good lump on the side of her head’.

The second piece of body-worn footage sees Ms Barton confirm her account to a different police officer and a police officer asked if she wanted to use an ice pack for the ‘bump’ on her head, the court heard.

A drunk Joey Barton was arrested at around 12am in his bedroom, where he had been asleep, the trial was told.

Giving evidence on Friday, Joey Barton said he had consumed ‘six to eight’ drinks with friends before he arrived home at about 6.30pm.

‘A couple of our friends got into a disagreement,’ he said. ‘That led to us having a disagreement. I stupidly took me mate’s side, I said his wife was out of order.

‘We just got into petty name calling. We ended up getting a bit more agitated and were close to each other.’

Barton said to the court that a friend had come between him and his wife to separate them, but denied that anything ‘physical’ had happened.

Ms Duong asked Barton: ‘Are you someone that on occasion might lose your temper?’

‘Yep,’ he responded.

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.’

Mrs Barton said to the court she and her husband had been ‘nose-to-nose at one point’, but had not come to blows.

‘There was a lot of wine drunk by myself that day.

‘I felt a collision to my head which stunned me and made me fall backwards,’ she said.

‘It couldn’t have been Joe, he was too far away.’

Mrs Barton said a friend later told the group: ‘Joe’s pushed her down, Joe’s hit her, Joe’s kicked her, you need to ring the police.

‘I just repeated on the phone what she had said.’

In 2022, a judge ordered that proceedings would be paused over concerns a trial wouldn’t be fair to Barton after prosecutors said they did not plan to ask Mrs Barton to give evidence in court.

Mrs Barton wrote to prosecutors a month prior the original planned trial and said the injury was an accident and came after she and her husband had both drank ‘four to five’ bottles of wine.

She said in her letter that her injuries came after friends tried to intervene in an argument between the pair.

‘I’m not a victim… I want to move on with my life,’ she said.

‘The reality is that that letter was an attempt to protect your husband,’ Ms Duong said today.

But in 2024, two senior judges ruled the decision to halt the trial was wrong after the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Stephen Parkinson, appealed against the decision at the High Court in London.

A 20-page ruling sees Dame Victoria Sharp say that the previous judge’s decision ‘was wrong in principle’.

Barton had denied a charge of assault by beating after being arrested by police at his home.

The incident was brought to the attention of police when Mrs Barton made a 999 call to officers just before 11.15pm.

The case had been originally heard in 2022, however, it was stopped because Missus Bartlett withdrawn all the allegations against her husband. So it’s taking place now because the High Court says that it needs to.

Former footballer Joey Barton pushed his wife to the floor before kicking her in the head during a drunken row at their family home, a court has heard. pic.twitter.com/sdUfODXz9D

— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) January 24, 2025

As seen in Sky Sports’ report above, the couple turned up at court together to give evidence. In the witness box, Joey Barton said he’d been drinking all day and admitted that he was somebody who occasionally lost his temper. He said there’d been a stupid verbal altercation but denied assault.

“I didn’t see her fall over. I went to bed”, he said. He added, “if I kick somebody in the head, there would be a lot more damage than that”.

Mrs Barton told the court she was extremely drunk and emotional. They were shouting and screaming, but no physical contact, she said.

She said friends intervened, but she was hurt in the commotion. “I’m a 100% confident Joe didn’t strike a blow”, she told the court.

And in a letter to the Crown Prosecution Service, she wrote, “my relationship with my husband is a good one. I am not a victim”.

So in summary, Mrs Barton, despite making that original 999 call, now says there was no assault.

There’s no verdict yet in this case. That will come in March.