BARTON 'NONCE' SLUR LIBEL LOSS

First court round in Vine's favour

- JERRY LAWTON

JOEY Barton has lost the first leg of his libel battle with Jeremy Vine after branding the BBC broadcaster a “bike nonce”.

The former footballer’s lawyer had claimed it was an “obvious attempt at humorous abuse”.

But a High Court judge ruled the slur Barton used on X – formerly Twitter – was defamatory.