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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Entertainment
Susan Knox

Rebekah Vardy blames IT issues for Coleen Rooney struggling to gain access to messages in libel case

Rebekah Vardy's lawyers have blamed IT issues for Coleen Rooney's difficulty gaining access to some messages in libel case against Wayne Rooney's wife.

The wife of Jamie Vardy is currently in legal dispute with Coleen Rooney at the High Court in London after Coleen publicly accused Rebekah of leaking stories about her private life to the media.

However the WAG has denied the allegations and is suing Coleen for libel.

In the latest update at the pre-trial hearing on Wednesday, the court heard that an IT expert assigned by Rebekah to extract her WhatsApp data for disclosure to Coleen's legal team had allegedly 'forgotten the password' he had used to access the material.

Coleen's lawyer David Sherborne told the judge: “We are told Mrs Vardy's expert has forgotten the password he used to encrypt the material.”

Rebekah Vardy has blamed a failure to disclose messages in the 'Wagatha Christie' case on an IT man (@beckyvardy)

It is claimed that Coleen's team only has a 'partial picture' of what conversations took place between Rebekah and her agent Ms Caroline Watt.

However this was strongly refuted by Vardy's legal team.

Sara Mansoori QC told the court on Wednesday: “He wrote the password down in October last year but that password now doesn't work.

"There were corruption issues that may be responsible for it.”

Rebekah has blamed an IT man for failing to disclose messages (Ken McKay/ITV/REX)
Rebekah is married to football star Jamie Vardy (Getty Images)

Furthermore, according to The Telegraph, Rebekah's lawyers said her IT expert had not in fact forgotten the password to access the data.

Hugh tomlinson QC, representing Ms Vardy, said they had 'done our utmost to give proper disclosure.

Vardy's team have maintained that she has provided disclosure of relevant documents.

Mr Sherborne began the hearing on Wednesday by making an application for third party disclosure against News Group Newspapers Ltd – the publisher of the Sun newspaper.

He said this was over communications between Rebekah, her agent Caroline and a number of Sun journalists in which the two women were allegedly 'passing on stories or information relating to other parties'.

Rebekah and Coleen are going head-to-head in court (Getty Images)

The barrister claimed Vardy believed any disclosure order should be limited around articles about Coleen, but said this "ignores" his client’s case, which was "wider than just Mrs Vardy leaking stories about Mrs Rooney either directly herself or through others under her instruction".

During his application, he claimed Rebekah 'has an established practice and history of leaking private information about others in particular to the Sun newspaper and she is a leaker or others’ private information'.

Coleen was dubbed "Wagatha Christie" when she publicly claimed Vardy shared fake stories she had posted on her personal Instagram account with The Sun newspaper.

Rebekah has continued to deny the allegations.

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