Joey Barton to pay more than £200,000 of Jeremy Vine legal costs in libel battle

By Callum Parke, PA Law Reporter

Former footballer Joey Barton will pay more than £200,000 of Jeremy Vine’s legal costs after their High Court libel battle, a court has heard.

Vine sued Barton for libel and harassment over several online posts, including one in which he falsely called the BBC Radio 2 presenter a “big bike nonce” and a “pedo defender” on X, formerly Twitter.

The pair settled the claim last year after Barton posted two apologies on the same social media platform and paid a total of £110,000 in damages to Vine, as well as his legal costs.

In an agreed statement read out at the High Court in October last year, barrister Gervase de Wilde, for Vine, said that the broadcaster “was deeply alarmed, distressed and upset” by Barton’s actions, which included a “persistent and highly damaging campaign of defamation, harassment and misuse of private information”.

On Tuesday,  a specialist costs court heard that Barton had agreed to pay £160,000 of Vine’s costs from the main legal action.

Costs Judge Colum Leonard also ordered Barton to pay a further £43,172.30 arising from the negotiation of the £160,000 figure, meaning he will pay a total of £203,172.30 of Vine’s costs following the legal action.

Lawyers for Vine told the High Court in May last year that Barton’s posts amounted to a “calculated and sustained attack”.

Barton – who played for teams including Manchester City, Newcastle United, Rangers, and French side Marseille during his career – also began using “#bikenonce” on X, which led to it trending on the platform.

After Mrs Justice Steyn ruled that some of the posts could defame Vine, Barton apologised to the journalist in June last year, stating that the allegations he made were “untrue”.

He said that he would pay Vine £75,000 in damages, but solicitors for Vine later said Barton would pay a further £35,000 as part of a “separate settlement” for claims published after legal action began.

Mr De Wilde told the October hearing that Barton made four undertakings as part of the settlement, including not to harass Vine or encourage others to do so.

Vine said following that hearing that Barton “needs to find himself a different hobby”.

The hearing on Tuesday was told that Barton agreed to pay £160,000 of Vine’s legal costs earlier this month, and that Vine was claiming around £60,000 in costs for negotiating that figure.

Suzanne Holmes, for Barton, said this was “excessive” and “disproportionate”, and should be reduced.

Kevin Latham, representing Vine, said Barton had “repeatedly failed to engage in proper negotiation” throughout proceedings and “has to bear the consequences of that approach”.

Neither Barton nor Vine attended the hearing in London.