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Coleen Rooney’s lawyers for her Wagatha Christie battle with Rebekah Vardy included dinner, drinks and mini bar charges at a luxury hotel in legal fees totalling more than £1.8 million, the High Court has been told.
Ms Vardy, 42, lost her high-profile libel claim against fellow WAG Ms Rooney, 38, in July 2022 when Mrs Justice Steyn ruled that her viral social media post accusing Mrs Vardy of leaking her private information to the press was “substantially true”.
In an order from October the same year, the judge ruled that Mrs Vardy, the wife of Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, should pay 90 per cent of the costs incurred by Mrs Rooney, who is the wife of former England captain Wayne Rooney, with an initial £800,000 then ordered to be paid.
Now, more than two years after the trial and after a hearing over costs in May, representatives of the friends-turned-foes returned to court once again in a dispute over the amount to be paid, as lawyers for Mrs Vardy said that Mrs Rooney’s claimed legal bill totalled £1,833,906.89.
In written submissions for the hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Monday, Jamie Carpenter KC, representing Mrs Vardy, said this included costs for a lawyer staying “at the Nobu Hotel, incurring substantial dinner and drinks charges as well as mini bar charges”.
He said: “The costs dispute has been rendered particularly intractable by the sheer magnitude of the costs claimed by Mrs Rooney, in absolute terms and when compared to her agreed costs budget, the number of errors in the bill and the extraordinary nature of some of the costs claimed.
“The bill, drawn at 100 per cent of the costs claimed… totals £1,833,906.89.”
Mr Carpenter said the bill was “drawn without sufficient care” and had “a ‘kitchen sink’ approach”, and included “over £120,000 of costs to which Mrs Rooney has no entitlement”.
He said Mrs Rooney’s barrister, David Sherborne, “charged total fees over the course of the proceedings of £497,850”.
The court was told that Mrs Rooney’s total bill was “over three times Mrs Rooney’s agreed costs budget of £540,779.07” and it was claimed that she had “deliberately understated” her earlier costs.
This amounted to “serious misconduct, which involved knowingly misleading Mrs Vardy and the court”, and should lead to a reduction in the amount of money to be paid by Mrs Vardy as a result, Mr Carpenter said.
In court, he added that Mrs Rooney had been “deliberately misleading”, saying: “There is no other way to construe it.”
In the October 2019 viral social media post at the heart of the libel claim, Mrs Rooney said she had carried out a months-long “sting operation” and accused Mrs Vardy of leaking information about her private life to the press.
Mrs Rooney publicly claimed Mrs Vardy’s account was the source behind three stories in The Sun newspaper featuring fake details she had posted on her private Instagram profile – featuring her travelling to Mexico for a “gender selection” procedure, her planning to return to TV and the basement flooding at her home.
Following the high-profile trial, Mrs Justice Steyn ruled in Mrs Rooney’s favour, finding it was “likely” that Mrs Vardy’s agent, Caroline Watt, had passed information to The Sun and that she “knew of and condoned this behaviour”.
The judge added that Mrs Vardy had “actively” engaged, “directing Ms Watt to the private Instagram account, sending her screenshots of Mrs Rooney’s posts, drawing attention to items of potential interest to the press and answering additional queries raised by the press via Ms Watt”.
Robin Dunne, representing Mrs Rooney on Monday, said in his written submissions that Mrs Vardy had shown “deplorable conduct” in the case, and that costs could have been lower if “she conducted this litigation appropriately”.
He said: “This was a libel claim which Mrs Vardy chose to launch, despite knowing that the Instagram post was true.
“Mrs Vardy refused to engage with Mrs Rooney to try and avoid these proceedings and by her conduct meant that significant additional costs were required to be incurred by Mrs Rooney.”
He continued: “It sits ill in Mrs Vardy’s mouth to now claim that Mrs Rooney’s costs, a great deal of which were caused directly by her conduct, are unreasonable.”
He said that Mrs Rooney’s budget was “not designed to be an accurate or binding representation” of her overall legal costs.
He added: “There has been no misconduct here. Had Mrs Vardy conducted this matter in a reasonable fashion, Mrs Rooney would be confined to her budget and would have recovered no more absent good reason.”
In court, Mr Dunne said it was “illogical to say that we misled anyone”.
The hearing before senior costs judge Andrew Gordon-Saker, which was not attended by either Mrs Rooney or Mrs Vardy on Monday, will conclude on Wednesday.
