None of us have any way of knowing what happened that night, but everyone knows plenty about Barton's previous violent outbursts and that's just the stuff that made it to the public domain. It is almost unbelievable that he's still working as a manager in the football league while this remains unresolved, even more so when it's just one of two cases of alleged physical violence by Joey Barton that are currently going through the courts.Make of it what you will but it's probably worth mentioning that Barton's wife didn't want charges brought and has posted messages to this effect on social media.
http://instagr.am/p/CRv2AkEsy53/
As a further aside, playing devil's advocate for a moment, compare and contrast the reaction to this court case with the one which saw Caroline Flack charged with hitting her partner over the head with a lamp.
Plainly, Barton has some serious issues but not sure these things are always as black and white as some would have you believe.