Former Manchester City star Joey Barton agrees to pay Jeremy Vine £75,000 over posts accusing the BBC presenter of having a ‘sexual interest in children’

The former Manchester City and England player, 41, was also forced to share an apology online with Vine

BBC Radio 2 host Vine, 59, launched legal action in response to the online “bike nonce” provocation made in January this year.

Barton, sacked as Bristol Rovers manager last October, has now confirmed his resignation in a comment shared with his 2.8 million followers on X, formerly Twitter.

He admitted responsibility for what he described as “defamation and harassment”.

Barton wrote at lunchtime: ‘Between 8 and 12 January 2024 I made 11 posts accusing Jeremy Vine of having a sexual interest in children and created a hashtag containing the same allegations, which was seen millions of times.

«I recognize that this is a very serious accusation. It is not true. I do not believe Mr. Vine has a sexual interest in children and I want to set the record straight.

Around the same time I also posted posts referring to Mr. Vine advocating forced vaccination during the Covid 19 pandemic, based on a video clip from his television show.

“I accept that he did not support this policy and that the video clip was edited to give a misleading impression of what he was actually saying.

“Then I cursed and abused Mr. Vine for filing a legal complaint against me.

“I have agreed not to make the same allegations against Mr. Vine again and I apologize to him for the inconvenience he has suffered.

“To resolve his claims against me for defamation and harassment, I have agreed to pay Mr Vine £75,000 in damages and his legal costs.”

High Court judge Mrs Justice Steyn had ruled on 24 May that a social media post by Barton calling the broadcaster a “bike nonce” was defamatory.

Barton had labeled Vine a “big bike nonce” and a “pedophile enforcer”.

The wave of abuse came after Mr Vine asked whether Mr Barton had a brain injury in response to a post in which the footballer compared football pundits Eni Aluko and Lucy Ward to serial killers Fred and Rose West.

This led to Mr Barton launching a “calculated and sustained attack on Mr Vine” in early January this year, the court was told.

Mr Barton made several posts over the following days and began using “#bikenonce” on X, which led to it trending on the platform, the court was told.

Judge Steyn said in response: ‘The strong impression gained from the statement that the appellant is known as “aka bike nonce”, followed immediately by the further statement that he is known, once again, “aka pedo defender”, is that the term “nonce” was used in its primary meaning to state that the appellant has a sexual interest in children.

‘While I do not believe that the hypothetical reader, who would quickly read the post and move on, would infer a causal connection, i.e. that the appellant defends pedophiles because he shares the same propensity as them, the juxtaposition of the words “nonce” and “pedo” is striking and would strengthen the impression that the first was used in the sense of “pedophile”.

«The reader would have understood that the word “bicycle” was a meaningless aspect of the accusation, which only served to indicate that it was a label affixed to the appellant, known as a cyclist, without detracting from the key word “nonce” ”.’

William McCormick, for Barton, had said the posts contained “vulgar abuse” but did not defame Mr Vine and represented “someone who is posting in the heat of the moment”.