A High Court judge is due to rule on who won the libel battle between Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney.
Mrs Rooney, 36, claimed in a social media post in October 2019 that she had carried out a "sting operation" and accused Mrs Vardy, 40, of leaking "false stories" about her private life to the press. The wife of former England player Wayne Rooney publicly claimed that Mrs Vardy was the source of three fake stories that were posted to her private Instagram account.
However, Mrs Vardy, wife of Leicester striker Jamie Vardy, denied the claims and sued Mrs Rooney for libel. Meanwhile, Mrs Rooney defended her claims on the basis that her post was "substantially true". Now, Mrs Justice Steyn is due to publish her ruling on the 'Wagatha Christie' case on Friday.
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It comes after the two footballers' wives gave evidence across seven days at the Royal Courts of Justice. During the trial, Mrs Rooney's barrister, David Sherborne, argued that Mrs Vardy had a "habitual and established practice" of leaking information about her acquaintances to The Sun newspaper through her friend and former agent Caroline Watt.
Her barrister added: "It is what she believed at the time… and it is what she believes even more so now that we have got to the end of the case. However, Hugh Tomlinson QC, for Mrs Vardy said that Mrs Rooney had "failed to produce any evidence" that Mrs Vardy had "regularly and frequently abused her status as a trusted follower" of her private Instagram account.
Mr Tomlinson claimed the libel battle was a "very simple case" when "one clears away the conspiracy theories". He added: "Mrs Vardy’s case is and always has been that she did not leak the information nor did she authorise anyone else to leak.
“She does not know to this day what happened,” Mr Tomlinson said, adding: “She does not know where this information came from.”
The barrister added that Mrs Vardy suffered “very serious harm to her reputation” as a result of Mrs Rooney’s post. The judgment is due to be handed down by Mrs Justice Steyn at 12pm on Friday.
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