Former Premier League footballer Joey Barton pushed his wife to the floor before kicking her in the head in a row at their home, a court has heard.

The ex-Manchester City and QPR midfielder, 42, is accused of assaulting Georgia Barton, 38, in Kew, south-west London in June 2021, before threatening to fight her brother and dad.

Prosecutors claim that Mrs Barton was left with a large lump on her forehead and a bleeding nose after the alleged assault.

Friends were said to have been forced to intervene in the argument between the pair, pulling Barton away from his wife after they were drinking with the couple while children slept upstairs.

Barton has denied a single charge of assault by beating.

Helena Duong, prosecuting, told Westminster Magistrates’ Court that “There had been a verbal disagreement about a family matter”.

She said that Mr Barton “grabbed her and pushed her to the ground and kicked her in the head” and after a friend attempted to pull him away. He allegedly threw them off and said “don’t disrespect me”.

Mrs Barton called the police shortly after 11pm to “report she had been hit by her husband”.

During the call played to court, she told handler: “Me husband’s just hit me in the house. He’s in the house, I’m outside.”

When asked if anything similar had happened before, Mrs Barton tearfully replied: “No, it’s the first time,” informing them that she had been hit “in the face”.

When police arrived around 30 minutes later, Mrs Barton told PC Daniel Humphrey: “I’ve been pushed down and kicked about and stuff. He said he was going to fight with my brother and my dad.”

The officer told the court on Friday that he saw a “gold ball-sized lump which looked swollen to me.

“There were little red dots under the skin“, he added.

The officer said he also saw Mrs Barton wipe her nose and blood was visible. “She said she’d had an argument with her husband,” he added. “He had somehow taken her to the ground, she said he pushed her and he either punched or kicked her.“

Mr Barton was set to face trial at a magistrates’ court in 2022, but the case was adjourned after Mrs Barton wrote to prosecutors retracting her allegations, claiming she was injured “accidentally”.

Simon Csoka QC, representing Mr Barton, told a previous hearing the couple had “all had four or five bottles of wine each”. He argued that the 999 call and bodycam footage would have been unfairly used against Mr Barton if the prosecution had not also called Mrs Barton as a witness.

Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring ruled that there would be ”no unfairness” with the call recording and bodyworn footage being used as evidence in the trial.

A judge previously paused proceedings over concerns a trial would be unfair to Mr Barton after prosecutors said they were not going to ask Mrs Barton to give evidence.

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) appealed against the decision at the High Court in London over claims at a hearing that a fair trial could take place.

In June, two judges ruled in the DPP’s favour and ordered Mr Barton to face a trial over the allegations, in front of a different judge.

Mrs Barton is not supporting the prosecution. Mr Csoka said Mrs Barton is planning to give evidence in her husband’s defence.

The hearing continues.