Joey Barton's incendiary behavior on X has not escaped the attention of the government. Photo: Geoff Gilbert
Joey Barton faces both government and legal action over his “dangerous” social media posts.
Stuart Andrew, the sports secretary, said he would “see” what he could do regarding Barton's rants about women. of which has now instructed lawyers about the “defamatory” abuse against her.
Last month, Barton launched a series of increasingly personal attacks on X, the former Twitter, primarily aimed at women working in football.
These developments culminated last week in publications comparing ITV experts Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward to Fred and Rose West, Britain's two worst serial killers.
This prompted the broadcaster to issue a statement condemning Barton. , who responded by strengthening his remarks.
The government has now intervened after Andrew denounced Barton in Parliament on Tuesday.
“These are dangerous comments that open the floodgates to abuse and this is unacceptable,” Andrew said, before revealing he would “look” at Ofcom having powers to tackle Barton's abuse under the government's new online safety bill .
He also said he would be “happy” to raise the issue with social media companies to ask what actions, if any, they are taking. against Barton.
Andrew's statement came minutes after Barton was contacted on social media by a lawyer representing a woman he called a “fraud.”
Barton became embroiled in a row with Louise Rowe, a television and radio historian and writer, who most recently criticized him a week later for comments implicating his brother Michael in the racist murder of black teenager Anthony Walker.
The row prompted Barton to accuse her of being a “pure fraud” in a GoFundMe campaign she led last year to take legal action against Jeremy Clarkson over an article the host wrote saying the Duchess of Sussex should be “forced march naked through the streets.” “
Barton's posts on Raw have now been contacted by Laurence Davies, chief executive of Equal Justice, who responded to X: “Dear Mr Barton, We are acting on behalf of Louise Raw. Your tweets about her are certainly defamatory and we will write you a formal letter regarding this later this week. Please provide the service address or contact information for your lawyer. Please refrain from making further defamatory comments.
“I can confirm that all monies received from GFM have been transferred to my firm. No money was retained by my client. No money was used by her other than for the purpose of obtaining legal advice. Your allegation of fraud on her part is completely untrue and damaging to her reputation.”
Barton replied: “You can send this to my personal address email http://mybigfathairya——. com We look forward to your response.”
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