Joey Barton has been found guilty of kicking his wife in the head during a drunken row. The ex-footballer, 42, attacked Georgia Barton, 38, inside their home while their children slept upstairs, leaving her with a bleeding nose and a lump the size of a “ golf ball” on her forehead. He was spared jail, handed a 12-week sentence, which was suspended for two years. Mrs Barton called police immediately after the incident, which happened at about 11pm on June 2, 2021, and could be heard sobbing while telling a 999 operator: “My husband just hit me”. When asked: ‘Did he hit you anywhere else?’ she replied: “Just in the face”. She later repeated the allegation when cops turned up at the address in Kew, South West London, and was filmed on body-worn cameras telling officers she had been “pushed down and kicked about”. Barton was arrested in his bedroom – still drunk – on the night of the attack, Westminster magistrates court was told. PC Daniel Humphrey told the court he saw a “golf ball sized lump which looked swollen” on Mrs Barton’s head, as well as “little red dots under the skin” and blood visible under her nose. He said: “She said she’d had an argument with her husband, he had somehow taken her to the ground, she said he pushed her and he either punched or kicked her”. The court heard Mrs Barton refused to give a formal statement to police the following day. And she later withdrew her allegations in a letter to prosecutors before giving evidence in her husband’s defence. Mrs Barton, who the court heard is still living with her husband and has two children with him, admitted she and Barton had been “nose to nose”, but said they had not come to blows. She claimed she felt a “collision” to her head that “stunned me and made me fall backwards”, but she added: “It couldn’t have been Joe, he was too far away.” She told the court: “I was just so drunk, I didn’t know what was true. My relationship with my husband is a very good one.” Despite her evidence, a judge found Barton guilty of assault by beating and said he believed the former Man City, Newcastle and QPR midfielder and his wife had both lied to the court. Judge Paul Goldspring said: “I believe the veracity of the first account and it is supported by other evidence. The account on the telephone in the 999 call and to the attending officer is true. I reject the account by Mrs Barton over eight months later and repeated in the witness box by her.” Barton had originally been due to stand trial in 2022. The case was initially thrown out by a judge after his wife’s protests, before the prosecution appealed and the High Court ruled Barton should still face trial. Former Bristol Rovers boss Barton was ordered to pay £2,183 in victim surcharge and prosecution costs. Judge Goldspring, who is the current Chief Magistrate, added: “The one place your wife is entitled to feel safe and protected is her home, and the one person she is entitled to feel safe and protected by is you, and that’s not what happened in this case.” Speaking after the sentencing, Barton said he was “really disappointed” with the verdict and plans to appeal it at the High Court. Barton, who made one appearance for England, launched the attack on his wife after threatening to fight her dad and another family member after a day out drinking with pals, the court heard. He admitted he returned home and joined his wife and two other couples socialising in the garden, before an argument broke out, which he said led to him and his wife taking different sides and a “stupid verbal altercation” with “petty name calling”. But he denied assaulting her, suggesting he had not touched her and went to bed unaware that she had been injured. Prosecutor Helena Duong said Barton had “grabbed her, pushed her to the ground, and you kicked her to the head” after being left angry after she disrespected him in the course of the argument. She said Mrs Barton’s 999 call on the night of the incident was “compelling evidence” of the assault, as she had described it in “clear terms”. And she added that Mrs Barton’s bloody nose was “an injury that really requires an explanation”, adding: “It was, plainly, something not caused by an accident.” Barton claimed: “If I kicked someone in the head, there would be a lot more damage than what’s alleged in this case. I didn’t do any of it, I went to bed.” The former footballer’s lawyer Simon Csoka KC told the court Barton was either bare-foot or wearing flip flops at the time and suggested Mrs Barton’s injuries were not consistent with being kicked while lying on the ground. He added: “A kick from a professional footballer would no doubt have broken his toes”. Barton was previously jailed for six months in 2008 after being convicted of affray and assault in an incident in Liverpool city centre. And he received a four-month suspended prison term the same year for attacking Manchester City teammate Ousmane Dabo during a training ground fracas.