Coleen Rooney does not want any compensation or retribution after the “Wagatha Christie” defamation trial, according to her lawyer, who said she is “just glad it’s over and she can get on with her life”.
Rebekah Vardy lost her defamation case against Rooney on Friday after a scathing high court ruling described her as an “unreliable witness” who was likely to have deliberately destroyed potentially vital evidence.
Vardy now faces a hefty legal bill, estimated to be in the region of £3million, after Judge Steyn ruled he likely worked with his agent to leak stories from Rooney’s private Instagram account to the Sun .
Rooney is reportedly in “advanced talks” about a docu-series about the trial with a possible deal with Netflix or Amazon Prime.
Rooney’s lawyer, Paul Lunt, said Saturday that his client’s “sole goal” was to stop the intrusion into his private life.
“Coleen didn’t want this,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “She didn’t want any of this to happen. She doesn’t want any compensation, retribution, she never wanted any of this, she just wanted it to be stop the intrusion he was seeing into his private life and that was his one and only goal.
“She has no remaining goals, she certainly has no need for compensation or demands or any of those characteristics. She’s glad it’s over and she can get on with her life.”
Lunt, head of litigation at law firm Brabners, said they tried to settle the case but that as a defendant, Rooney, whose husband is ex-England footballer Wayne, had “very limited options”.
“You can either defend or capitulate,” he added. “And Coleen was not about to capitulate, but we made every effort to see if there was any middle ground that could be found and unfortunately we were not able to succeed on that front.”
He claimed that, according to court costs budgets, the figure of £3 million for legal costs was “a gross overestimate”.
“The figures out there are a matter of record, £3 million is a gross overestimate and do not represent those figures. I cannot speak to what Ms Rooney has spent on the case, I can only know what I know from my side of things.”
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Sign up for First Edition, our free daily newsletter, every weekday morning at 7am BSTH. He also said Vardy, whose husband is Leicester City footballer Jamie, could face “certain consequential problems” after Sun reporters were approached about the claim. But that would be “between the Sun and Mrs Vardy to resolve”.
Asked about reports of a Netflix special, Lunt said he’s had a lot of media approaches, adding, “If everyone’s telling me the truth, there’s a lot of documentaries being made.” But he said he had “certainly not been involved with any of them and it would be news to me if Coleen had been involved with any of them”.
On Friday, Rooney welcomed his victory but said he “never believed it should have gone to court”.
A three-year battle with Vardy followed after Rooney carried out a “sting” operation to find out who was leaking stories about her. After posting the words “It’s …… Rebekah Vardy’s account” on Instagram, she was sued for defamation by Vardy, who denied passing on information to the Sun.