Judges of the High Court decided on Friday that the 41-year-old’s case, which had been put on hold earlier, should proceed.
The former Manchester City player was scheduled to go on trial in a magistrates’ court in 2022 after being accused of beating his wife, Georgia Barton, during an inebriated argument. He denied any wrongdoing.
In June 2021, after an argument outside their home in Kew, southwest London, he was accused of seizing his wife by the throat and kicking her in the head.
According to reports, Mrs. Barton was left with a nosebleed and a bruise the size of a golf ball on her forehead.
But after Mrs. Barton wrote a letter to the prosecutors withdrawing her accusations, the case was postponed.
Then, after prosecutors declared they would not call Mrs. Barton to testify in court, a judge granted a temporary stay of the proceedings due to concerns that a trial would be unjust to Mr. Barton.
Mr. Barton denied claims that he had been beaten at the scene of an assault after being placed under arrest by police at his residence.
However, in March 2022, Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court heard that Mrs. Barton wrote to prosecutors one month prior to the planned trial, claiming that she was inadvertently hurt after friends broke up an altercation between the two after they had both consumed “four or five bottles of wine.”
