According to a new documentary, Rebekah Vardy believes Coleen Rooney’s attorneys resorted to ‘desperate’ measures to defeat her during her failed Wagatha Christie libel trial.
Mrs. Vardy’s pals, including fellow WAG Nicola McLean, allege she was treated “appallingly” by her rival’s attorney in a High Court case dubbed the most disastrous libel suit in history.
After suffering a crushing defeat in October, it was ruled that she would be responsible for her own legal fees, which reportedly totaled more than £3 million. Mrs. Rooney attempted to settle the issue out of court, but Mrs. Vardy, who broke down in the witness box on multiple occasions, refused.
Early in the trial, Mrs. Rooney’s attorney, David Sherborne, questioned Ms. Vardy about a News Of The World interview in which she allegedly described a sexual experience with musician Peter Andre.
Mr. Sherborne displayed to Mr. Vardy an A3 printout of the item with the following headline: “Peter’s hanging like a little chipolata, shaved, slobbery, lasts five minutes.”
In 2001, after an alleged one-night stand, Rebekah sold her story to a tabloid in which she was quoted as stating, “When he pulled down his pants, I couldn’t believe it.” It was like to a small chipolata.
When asked in court with her vulgar remarks, Rebekah claimed that she had been “misrepresented” in the narrative and that her abusive ex-partner had forced her to conduct the interview.
In the upcoming Discovery+ documentary Vardy vs. Rooney: The Wagatha Trial, Rebekah argues, “In David Sherborne’s own words, there was no smoking gun.” Therefore, he had to muddy the waters in order to establish this inference-based case against me, which was really difficult to swallow.
Wayne and Coleen Rooney leave the Royal Courts of Justice with defense attorney David Sherborne, who, according to Rebekah Vardy and her friends, treated her horribly.
Rebekah Vardy, age 40, with her attorney Hugh Tomlinson QC. She had unsuccessfully sued Coleen Rooney for slander.
Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy together in 2016. Mrs. Vardy’s reputation is in ruins after losing the case she brought against the WAGs in the libel case of the year.
Unexpected courtroom banter regarding the size of Peter Andre’s genitalia – which Ms. Vardy had compared to a “chipolata” – was one of the case’s most memorable moments.
The social media post that accused Rebekah Vardy of leaking news. It generated a £3 million legal battle, which Mrs. Rooney won after the judge ruled that it was “basically true” and thus not libelous.
How Coleen and Rebekah’s long-running, nasty fight unfolded under the world’s eyes, as described by Wagatha Christie.
September 2017 to October 2019 – The Sun publishes several items about Coleen, including the fact that she traveled to Mexico to research ‘gender selection’ treatment for babies, her plan to relaunch her television career, and the flooding of her basement.
Coleen accuses Rebekah of selling articles from her private Instagram account to newspapers via social media on October 9, 2019.
Coleen claims that she spent five months trying to determine who was spreading information about her and her family based on the posts she had made on her own social media profile.
Coleen alleges that Rebekah’s Instagram account was the only one that viewed her ‘fake’ stories after she shared a number of them and employed a process of elimination.
Rebekah, who was pregnant with her fifth child at the time, disputes the charges and claims that several individuals had access to her Instagram account over the years.
She claims to be “very devastated” by Coleen’s charge, adding later, “I thought she was my buddy, but she utterly destroyed me.”
The #WagathaChristie hashtag is trending around the world as a result of the dispute’s widespread coverage in the media.
In a sad appearance on ITV’s Loose Women on February 13, 2020, Rebekah reveals that the stress of the dispute led her to suffer from severe anxiety attacks, which landed her in the hospital three times.
In a statement, Coleen states that she does not wish to “engage in additional public debate.”
It is revealed on June 23, 2020, that Rebekah has initiated libel actions against Coleen.
Rebekah’s attorneys claim she endured significant hardship, pain, anxiety, and humiliation as a result of the publication of the post and the subsequent events.
London’s High Court holds the initial libel trial hearing on November 19-20, 2020. A judge determines that Coleen’s tweet from October 2019 “clearly identified” Rebekah as “guilty of the serious and repeated breach of trust.”
Mr Justice Warby concludes that the “natural and usual” interpretation of the posts was that Rebekah “regularly and repeatedly exploited her role as a trusted follower of Coleen’s personal Instagram account by covertly alerting The Sun of Coleen’s private Instagram posts and tales.”
A preliminary court hearing on February 8-9, 2022 reveals a series of incendiary texts between Rebekah and her agent Caroline Watt, which Coleen’s attorneys claim were about her.
The court has been informed that Rebekah was not referring to Coleen when she used the term “nasty b***h” in a conversation with Ms. Watt.
Coleen’s attorneys want additional information from the WhatsApp communications, but the court is informed that Ms Watt’s phone went into the North Sea after her boat was hit by a wave, preventing any additional information from being extracted.
Coleen is denied permission to file a High Court claim against Ms. Watt for abuse of private information concurrently with the libel suit on February 14. Mrs. Justice Steyn, a High Court judge, states that the claim was filed too late and that previous opportunities to do so were missed.
The High Court is informed on April 13 that Ms. Watt is unfit to give oral testimony at the approaching libel trial, as the case returns for another hearing.
Rebekah ‘appears to agree’ on April 29 that her agent was the source of allegedly leaked stories, according to Coleen’s attorney David Sherborne before the High Court. He maintains that a fresh witness statement supplied by Rebekah indicates that Ms. Watt was the source, although Rebekah asserts that she “did not authorize or condone” Ms. Watt.
Beginning on 10 May, the trial will last seven days.
Rebekah Vardy lost her libel case on July 29, but claimed the judge erred.
In reference to the 2004 Peter Andre interview in which she stated that a night with him was not worth the train fare from Sheffield, she stated, ‘I knew what David Sherborne was attempting to achieve. He was attempting to build a narrative bias by painting a picture of me that made me appear to be this type of person. It’s desperation to bring up something someone did 20 years ago.
Charlotte Harris, Rebekah’s attorney, adding, “The Peter Andre aspect of it felt archaic and absolutely irrelevant.” Nothing more than dirty tactics. What was its genuine argument? ‘.
The humiliation of the 40-year-old was complete after she scored one of the worst own goals in British court history when the High Court rejected her testimony as ‘evasive or implausible,”manifestly contradictory,’ and ‘not believable.’
Her close friend and fellow WAG Nicola McLean defended her on the Discovery+ program, stating, ‘Her name was dragged through the mud.’
“Coleen’s attorneys were fierce. They went out and successfully killed her.
They targeted Becky for character assassination, aggressively interrogated her, and made fun of her, yet she continued to stand there day after day.
Mrs. Rooney had paid more than £166,000 to detectives in an attempt to prove that Rebekah Vardy was responsible for the ‘Wagatha Christie’ Instagram leaks.
According to court documents, Mrs. Rooney’s legal team spent £166,583 on “various expenses, including expert witnesses.”
Mrs. Rooney, age 36, is now attempting to recover her legal fees from Mrs. Vardy, age 40, an amount that might reach £1,500,000.
Mrs. Vardy has been ordered to pay £800,000 by mid-November, with Mrs. Justice Steyn stating that she will ultimately be responsible for 90% of Mrs. Rooney’s expenditures.
A source close to Mrs. Rooney confirmed that approximately £140,000 of the “miscellaneous” amount was used to hire a “team of forensic computer experts.”
They wanted to determine if Mrs. Vardy had viewed and leaked Mrs. Rooney’s private Instagram posts, which were key to the case.
Eventually, about 3,000 pages of social media posts were produced as proof.
Mrs. Rooney’s legal team also attempted to explain the circumstances surrounding the ‘loss’ of texts between Mrs. Vardy and her agent Caroline Watt.
Matt Blackband testified before the High Court at the trial for Mrs. Rooney earlier this year.
Mr. Blackband is a former Scotland Yard officer who conducted cyber security investigations for the police and who now specializes in “digital and forensic information services” for private clients. It was not feasible, according to him, for Mrs. Vardy’s WhatsApp discussions with Miss Watt to have vanished when she attempted to download them, as she claimed.
Mrs. Vardy also called a computer expert to testify regarding the deleted data and Instagram posts. According to sources, her report and counsel cost roughly £20,000.
In her ruling, Mrs. Justice Steyn stated that it was evident that “technical evidence cannot provide an answer” as to whether Mrs. Vardy leaked Mrs. Rooney’s posts.
She stated, however, that expert testimony was “very significant” to the allegations that evidence had been erased.
After her phone fell overboard during a boat ride while she was on vacation, Miss Watt claimed that she had lost all of her data. Mrs. Rooney, wife of former England player Wayne, staged a sting operation accusing Mrs. Vardy of leaking sensitive information about her to The Sun in 2019.
Mrs. Vardy has always denied providing the newspaper with information from Mrs. Rooney’s private Instagram account.
Mrs. Justice Steyn decided, however, that Mrs. Vardy likely collaborated with Miss Watt to leak stories from Mrs. Rooney’s Instagram account to The Sun, providing recommendations to tabloid journalists and assisting with their enquiries.
The judge determined that Mrs. Vardy’s testimony was obviously inconsistent, evasive, or improbable on numerous instances.
The court determined that Mrs. Vardy and Miss Watt “deleted or destroyed” evidence on purpose. She ruled that it was likely that Miss Watt did not unintentionally drop her phone into the North Sea, but that she did so on purpose in response to a legal request to examine its WhatsApp chats.
Mrs. Vardy is obligated to pay 90% of Mrs. Rooney’s legal fees. Mrs. Rooney’s legal team has not yet generated a final cost estimate, but the most recent amount presented to the court was $1,667,860. If this remains unaltered, 90% of that amount would be £1.5 million.
A screenshot of one of two private Instagram posts made by Coleen Rooney on the day of her popular public post criticizing Rebecca Vardy’s account.
Coleen told the court that she only shared the image (shown on the left) on her private account because she did not want to fuel rumors about her and Wayne reuniting after their marriage ended due to Wayne’s drunk driving arrest in another woman’s car. Coleen only posted one photo of herself with her then-three sons Kai, Klay, and Kit wearing similar pajamas on her public Instagram account. A few days later, though, The Sun published an article clearly based on the private image, which enraged her.
Mrs. Rooney incurred expenses totaling more than $2 million, but $350,000 had already been incurred prior to the May trial, so they were subtracted from the amount provided to the court. Mrs. Rooney contended that she should be paid in full, while Mrs. Vardy requested payment of 80%.
If Mrs. Vardy does not agree to pay 90 percent and a judge later deems some charges unjustified, the final amount may be decreased.
</ad-slot