Jury out in footballer assault trial

The jury trying a Premier League footballer for allegedly groping a young woman and then breaking her nose after she spurned his advances retired to consider its verdicts today.

Wigan Athletic striker Marlon King (aged 29) is said to have first grabbed the university student’s bottom before “decking” her with a single punch in London’s Soho Revue Bar last December.

The 20-year-old university student and two friends, who claim the Jamaica international pestered them as well, were among a number of witnesses who identified the £5m player as the assailant.

But father-of-three King, from Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, told London’s Southwark Crown Court he is the victim of mistaken identity.

King had been out celebrating after his wife Julie told him that she was expecting their third child.

He denies sexual assault and causing actual bodily harm.