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 online apology to Vine

BBC Radio 2 host Vine, 59, launched legal action in response to the online taunt of ‘bike nonce’ made in January this year.

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

He admitted responsibility for what he described as ‘defamation and harassment’.

Barton wrote this lunchtime: ‘Between 8 and 12 January 2024 I published 11 posts which accused Jeremy Vine of having a sexual interest in children, and created a hashtag which made the same allegations, which were viewed millions of times.

‘I recognise that this is a very serious allegation. It is untrue. I do not believe that Mr Vine has a sexual interest in children, and I wish to set the record straight.

‘I also published posts during the same period in which I referred to Mr Vine having advocated forced vaccination during the Covid 19 pandemic, based upon a video clip of his TV programme.

‘I accept that he did not advocate this policy and that the video clip has been edited to give a misleading impression of what he was in fact saying.

‘I then taunted and abused Mr Vine for bringing a legal complaint against me.

‘I have agreed not to make the same allegations again about Mr Vine and I apologise to him for the distress he has suffered.

‘To resolve his claims against me in 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 May 24 that a social media post by Barton calling the broadcaster a ‘bike nonce’ was defamatory.

Barton had labelled Vine a ‘big bike nonce’ and a ‘pedo defender’.

The tirade of abuse came after Mr Vine questioned whether Mr Barton had a brain injury in response to a post where the footballer compared female 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 heard.

Mr Barton published 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 by the assertion the claimant is known as “aka bike nonce”, followed immediately by the further assertion that he is known as, again, “aka pedo defender”, is that the term “nonce” was being used in its primary meaning to allege the claimant has a sexual interest in children.

‘While I do not consider that the hypothetical reader, who would read the post quickly and move on, would infer a causative link, ie. that the claimant defends paedophiles because he shares the same propensity, the juxtaposition of the words “nonce” and “pedo” is striking and would reinforce the impression that the former was used in the sense of “paedophile”.

‘The reader would have understood that the word “bike” was a meaningless aspect of the accusation, serving only as an indication that this was a label attached to the claimant, who was known as a cyclist, without detracting from the operative word “nonce”.’

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