Rebekah Vardy is taking Coleen Rooney to court in to a legal dispute over the amount she owes her from the Wagatha Christie libel case.
According to the Sun, the wife of Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy alleges that Rooney exaggerated the £1.8 million expenses associated with their court dispute.
This is said to include £2,000 for a stay at a five-star hotel in London for one of Rooney's solicitors, along with a £225 charge for food and minibar.
The Wagatha Christie controversy began nearly five years ago when Coleen Rooney, the wife of former England striker Wayne, claimed that a friend had leaked information about her to the media.
After suing Rooney for libel but failing, Vardy was compelled to reimburse 90 per cent of her legal fees.
A source close to Vardy told the Sun: “As far as Becky is concerned, they have been trying to pick her pockets because they think they can get away with it. They underestimated their costs and are over-billing her. From the costs of experts to legal fees, the figures are ludicrous.
“Becky won’t stand for it. She will keep fighting in court until she feels there is a fair outcome.”
The High Court is holding a preliminary hearing on Monday October 7.
What is the Wagatha Christie case?
Following Rooney's accusations on social media that Vardy had sold details about her and her family to the Sun, Vardy filed a defamation lawsuit against Rooney in 2020 after Rooney identified Vardy as the person who leaked information. Vardy claimed the post's publication and the events that followed caused her "extreme distress, hurt, anxiety, and embarrassment”.
Rooney had conducted her own research to determine the source of the disclosures after growing suspicious that details she had exclusively published on her private Instagram account were showing up in the Sun.
"I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person has viewed them. It's.......... Rebekah Vardy's account," tweeted Rooney.
This has been a burden in my life for a few years now and finally I have got to the bottom of it...... pic.twitter.com/0YqJAoXuK1
— Coleen Rooney (@ColeenRoo) October 9, 2019
Vardy replied right after, refuting the accusation levelled against her and asserting that she "never" talks to the public about the private life of her friends. She offered an explanation for why she was the only one who had seen the stories, speculating that several anonymous users might have had access to her Instagram account.
She issued a public statement denying the charge, criticising Rooney for going public during the latter stages of her pregnancy, and insisting someone else was to blame. but in the course of the legal battle, she deleted WhatsApp messages that may have formed evidence in the case against her, a High Court judge found.
What did the High Court find?
Extensive messages between Vardy and Caroline Watt, Vardy’s agent emerged, discussing a social media post about a car crash Rooney had and speculating about what had happened to Rooney.
Watt told Rooney about a Sun journalist “trying to do a story on Coleen crashing her car”, and the messages also uncovered a decidedly mean undercurrent as the two women joked about “victim” Coleen.
When Rooney briefly unfollowed Vardy on Instagram, at a time when she was hunting for the leaker, Vardy angrily said to Watt: “What a c***” and added: “That c*** needs to get over herself!”
The judge concluded: “It is obvious from these messages, both when read in isolation and confirmed by reading them in the context of other exchanges between Ms Vardy and Ms Watt, that Ms Vardy provided information that she had derived from the private Instagram Account to Ms Watt, in the knowledge that Ms Watt would provide it to a journalist from the Sun.”
As the trial wore on, more damaging exchanges emerged, painting Vardy as not just a habitual leaker of stories on her friends and associates but also someone who courted publicity.
She had orchestrated a paparazzi photo of her leaving hospital with her new-born child – presented in the news as a surprise picture she had not known about.
Vardy denied having a leading hand in the incident, but the judge concluded the messages she had sent at the time were more reliable than her evidence to the High Court.
In fact, the judge found Vardy “generally unwilling to make factual concessions, however implausible her evidence”, and when faced with compelling suggestions that she had a penchant for leaks – evidenced by comments like “would love to leak those stories” – she gave “wholly implausible” excuses.
The verdict came on Friday July 29, 2022 and, according to the judge, Vardy's wilful attempt to delete Whatsapp texts and other evidence was a contributing factor in Vardy's decision to reimburse Rooney for 90 per cent of his court fees.
Vardy was forced to pay Rooney up to £1.5 million in order to pay for her legal expenses after losing her high court battle.
Vardy was also held responsible for paying the sum of her own legal fees in addition to Rooney's legal expenditure.
