- Wives of former England soccer stars in defamation battle
- Coleen Rooney accused Rebekah Vardy of leaking stories
- Court backs Rooney’s claim it was Vardy
- I never wanted it to go to court, says Rooney
- A disappointed Vardy says the referee got it wrong
LONDON, July 29 (Reuters) – Coleen Rooney, wife of former England soccer captain Wayne, emerged victorious in her high-profile defamation match with the spouse of a former team-mate after a High Court judge agreed that Rebekah Vardy had leaked stories about her. in the press
In a case that has gripped the public with its mix of glamour, football and fan-spotting, the judge upheld Rooney’s public claim that Vardy had leaked private details about her to the Sun tabloid, leaving Vardy “devastated”.
The intrigue began almost three years ago when Rooney became suspicious of the stories in the Sun and became a detective to try and find the culprit.
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He said he blocked everyone from viewing his Instagram account except for one person and then posted a series of fake stories to see if they got leaked, which they did.
Rooney wrote on his social media accounts that only one person had seen the fake stories, concluding with the dramatic revelation: “It’s… Rebekah Vardy’s account.”
Vardy, 40, sued Rooney and the feud was dubbed the ‘WAGatha Christie’ case after the ‘WAG’ nickname given to a group of footballers’ wives and girlfriends, and the renowned novelist officers in honor of Rooney’s investigation.
The judge, Mr Justice Karen Steyn, said Rooney proved his allegation was “substantially true”. He concluded that Vardy knew and accepted the details leaked to the Sun by his agent Caroline Watt.
“It was not a case that I ever sought or wanted,” Rooney said in a statement.
“I never believed it should have gone to court at such expense … when the money could have been much better spent helping others,” he added.
Any decision on who pays the legal fees will be decided at a future hearing. British media have speculated that the trial cost millions of pounds.
“While I bear no ill will towards Ms Vardy, today’s judgment makes it clear that I was right in what I said in my posts of October 2019,” Rooney said.
Vardy said she was “extremely saddened and disappointed by the decision”.
“This is not the result I expected, nor did I believe was fair. I brought this action to vindicate my reputation and I am devastated by the judge’s finding,” he said in a statement. “(The judge) was wrong and that’s something I can’t accept.”
SEA FLOOR
During the trial in May, the court was shown message exchanges between Vardy and Watt, which included derogatory comments about Rooney and talk of leaked stories. Rooney’s lawyer said Vardy deleted other files and multimedia messages.
Watt’s phone ended up at the bottom of the North Sea after she said she accidentally dropped it on the side of a boat.
“It is likely that Ms Vardy deliberately deleted her WhatsApp chat with Ms Watt and that Ms Watt deliberately dropped her phone into the sea,” Steyn said.
The judge found Rooney to be honest, but said some of Vardy’s evidence was not credible and there had been “a degree of self-deception on her part as to the extent to which she was involved”.
The courtroom explosion has attracted a similar level of public attention to any of her husbands’ football matches.
Wayne Rooney holds the record for England’s most international goals, while Vardy’s husband Jamie has been one of the top goalscorers in the English Premier League in recent years, also playing and scoring for the national team.
Both women are famous in their own right — Coleen Rooney, 36, has 1.2 million followers on Twitter and nearly 925,000 on Instagram — and the defamation case lifted the lid on their glitzy lifestyles and less-than-flattering looks like the Rooneys. ‘ marital problems.
Vardy says his family had received abuse and threats as a result of Rooney’s public accusation and Steyn accepted it was not in the public interest for Rooney to have made the disclosure without giving Vardy a chance to respond first.
“Some members of the public have responded to the Reveal Post by subjecting Ms Vardy to vile abuse, including messages wishing her, her family and even her (then unborn) baby sick in the most horrific terms,” he said. Steyn said.
“Nothing that Ms Vardy has been accused of, nor any of the findings in this judgment, provides any justification or excuse for subjecting her family, or anyone else involved in this case, to this vitriol.”
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Reporting by Michael Holden; Edited by Alison Williams
Our standards: the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.