Michael Barton (criminal)

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This article is about the criminal. For the professor and ichthyologist see Michael Barton (professor). For the cricketer, see Michael Barton (cricketer).

Michael Barton, born 1988, is an English man from Huyton, Knowsley, Merseyside, who was found guilty of the July 2005 murder of Anthony Walker. He is the half-brother of Manchester City footballer Joey Barton.

In what has been described as a race-hate crime, Barton, along with his cousin Paul Taylor, attacked Mr Walker, an 18-year-old of West Indian descent, near to McGoldrick Park in Liverpool. They used an ice axe to inflict massive head injuries from which Mr Walker died soon afterwards.

The pair were sent for trial at Preston Crown Court. Taylor pleaded guilty to murder but Barton, who denied the same charge, was convicted of the killing on the grounds he supplied the weapon and started the confrontation.

Both men were sentenced on 1 December 2005. The trial judge, Mr Justice Leveson, recommended that Taylor should serve a minimum of 23 years and 8 months, while Barton was recommended to serve a mimimum term of 17 years and 8 months. This is expected to keep him behind bars until at least August 2023 and the age of 35. [1]

In April 2006 it was reported that Barton had been attacked by African inmates while showering at Moorland Young Offender Institution in Doncaster, South Yorkshire.[2]

Three more people were convicted of helping Barton and Taylor flee to the Netherlands before the pair's eventual arrest. On 10 May 2006 Robert Williams admitted perverting the course of justice by providing money and booking a hotel room for the pair. Sentencing him to 2 years and 4 months, Judge Henry Globe QC, the Recorder of Liverpool, said, "You acted to assist friends who you believed had been involved in a fight and that somebody might have been badly injured. It was an act of misplaced loyalty but one with the intent of perverting the course of justice. You knew about the murder yet you went abroad, in the face of the ugliness of the crime and the public outcry about what had happened, in order to pass money to the offenders and to obtain refuge for them in a hotel room". Paul Morson admitted assisting an offender and was sentenced to 11 months in prison for providing a getaway car; Tracy Garner admitted assisting an offender and received an 11 month suspended sentence.[3]