Rebekah Vardy has lost the "Wagatha Christie" High Court libel battle she brought against Coleen Rooney.
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In a viral social media post in October 2019, Rooney, 36, said she had carried out a “sting operation” and accused Vardy, 40, of leaking “false stories” about her private life to the press.
The wife of former England star Wayne Rooney publicly claimed Vardy’s account was the source behind three fake stories she had posted on her private Instagram account.
Vardy, who is married to Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, denied leaking the stories and sued her fellow footballer’s wife for libel, while Rooney defended the claim on the basis her post was “substantially true”.
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After a highly publicised libel trial in May, judge Justice Steyn has given her verdict.
In her ruling, Justice Steyn said it was “likely” that Vardy’s agent at the time, Caroline Watt, “undertook the direct act” of passing the information to The Sun.
But she added: “Nonetheless, the evidence … clearly shows, in my view, that Mrs Vardy knew of and condoned this behaviour, actively engaging in it by 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."
The judge added: “In my judgment, the conclusions that I have reached as to the extent to which the claimant engaged in disclosing to The Sun information to which she only had access as a permitted follower of an Instagram account which she knew, and Mrs Rooney repeatedly asserted, was private, suffice to show the single meaning is substantially true.”
