Rebekah Vardy will have to pay about £1.5 million towards Coleen Rooney’s legal costs after losing the “Wagatha Christie” High Court case she brought against her fellow footballer’s wife. It has also been ruled Mrs Vardy must pay Mrs Rooney £800,000 within six weeks.
Mrs Vardy, 40, lost her high-profile libel claim against Mrs Rooney, 36, in July when Mrs Justice Steyn ruled that Mrs Rooney’s viral social media post accusing Mrs Vardy of leaking her private information to the press was “substantially true”.
In an order made public on Tuesday, the judge ruled that Mrs Vardy should pay 90% of Mrs Rooney’s costs. Mrs Rooney incurred total costs of more than £2 million, but £350,000 of those had already been racked up before the trial in May.
In a judgment released today, Mrs Justice Steyn said the legal bill, which Coleen is said to not have finalised with the court, was last estimated in a witness statement by Coleen’s lawyer Paul Lunt at £1,667,860.48, reports The Mirror.
Mrs Vardy, wife of Jamie Vardy, was ordered to pay £800,000 of the costs on account by 4pm on November 15. The judgment also revealed Mrs Rooney wanted 100% of her costs paid and Mrs Vardy wanted to pay 80% as the judge had found in her favour for several matters disputed at the trial.
The judgment also concluded Mrs Vardy would have to pay the costs of journalists from The Sun. At the end of the trial Mrs Vardy was found not to have been behind the leak of a post about Mrs Rooney rebooting her television career or another post about her holidaying at private member's club Soho House.
Mrs Rooney, wife of Wayne Rooney, also alleged Mrs Vardy was behind the Secret Wag column in The Sun newspaper but this was rejected by Mrs Justice Steyn in her judgment. The judge ruled a 10% discount on the amount of costs to pay back to Mrs Vardy would reflect those matters.
However, she said a higher amount of costs than usual needed to be paid as a result of her finding that Mrs Vardy and her agent Caroline Watt had deliberately deleted evidence. The judgment said: "In my judgment, what takes this case out of the norm in a way which compels the conclusion that I should make an order for indemnity costs is that in my judgment following the trial I found that the Claimant (and also her former agent) had deliberately deleted or destroyed evidence.
"Such behaviour is outside the ordinary and reasonable conduct of proceedings."
For more stories from where you live, visit InYourArea
