Eni Aluko says Joey Barton ‘absolutely intended’ to cause harm with posts

Football pundit Eni Aluko has said Joey Barton “thrives on hurting people” and intended to cause harm through his grossly offensive social media posts.

The ex-footballer was sentenced on Monday to six months in custody suspended for 18 months, for making the posts about Ms Aluko, fellow pundit Lucy Ward, and broadcaster Jeremy Vine.

Speaking to the BBC’s Newsnight programme on Monday, Ms Aluko said the sentence sent “a huge message”.

“My objective, really, throughout this whole difficult period with this criminal trial, was to ensure that Joey Barton was held accountable for his grossly offensive posts about me, about Jeremy Vine and about Lucy Ward,” she told Newsnight.

“And I think that the sentence reflects very, very serious consequences.

“In totality, that’s what’s important to me: it’s that a huge message socially goes out now that actually, if you decide to target people online, and you are aggressive in that approach, and you bully people online, and you attack somebody’s race, you will be held criminally accountable for that.”

Newsnight host Nick Watt quoted Barton’s words that he “never intended to hurt anyone” and that the posts were part of “a joke, but it got out of hand”.

Ms Aluko replied: “I don’t believe that he never meant to hurt anybody. I think Joey Barton thrives on hurting people.

“Actually, there was evidence in this trial where he had multiple opportunities to stop what he was doing,” Ms Aluko added.

“He absolutely intended to get the highest amount of engagement that he needed to get, to promote a podcast and to go viral with his content.

“And it backfired on him, and he’s been held criminally accountable for what he thought he was going to get away with.”

Last month a jury at Liverpool Crown