Wigan striker Wigan striker Marlon King has been handed an 18 month jail sentence after being found guilty of a nightclub attack on a young woman.
The player has been sacked by Premier League club Wigan Athletic as a result of the verdict.
King, who was celebrating his wife’s pregnancy, was repeatedly ignored by women in London’s Soho Revue Bar last December.
When a university student became the latest to snub his advances, he lost his temper and lashed out, “smashing” her to the floor.
Prosecution lawyer Roger Daniells-Smith said King had struck up a conversation with his victim by saying: “Don’t you know who I am? I’m a millionaire.”
The court heard she replied: “I don’t care who you are; take your millionaire self away from our table.”
He groped the woman and she told him: “Don’t do that, it’s not nice. Don’t touch me.”
King was warned off her again but he continued to stroke the woman’s hair and then told her she was not in his league, the court heard.
After she pushed him in the chest, King lost his temper and a moment of “completely gratuitous violence” led to him “smashing” the victim to the floor, jurors were told.
His single clenched fist blow was so powerful that two other revellers – one of them holding on to his arm – were also sent flying.
The victim was helped to her feet, blood poured from her shattered nose, London’s Southwark Crown Court heard.
The 29-year-old claimed he was a victim of “mistaken identity”.
But he was unanimously convicted of sexually assaulting the 20-year-old and causing actual bodily harm.
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