The highly-publicised libel trial between WAGs Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney is due to start next week.
The sensational case unravelled when Mrs Rooney, who has since been nicknamed ‘Wagatha Christie’, accused Mrs Vardy of leaking stories to the press.
On October 9, 2019, Mrs Rooney, wife of former England football player Wayne Rooney, rocked the internet by revealing she had been investigating who had been selling her stories to The S*n, by carrying out an Instagram sting. She had posted fake stories to her Instagram, blocking “everybody but one person” to see if they would appear in the paper.
After these false tales appeared in the press, Mrs Rooney dramatically revealed on Twitte r that there must be one person behind the leaks. She accused Mrs Vardy, wife of Leicester City player Jamie Vardy, of selling her private stories to the press “for a few years”.
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She tweeted: “ "This has been a burden in my life for a few years now and I have finally gotten to the bottom of it. For a few years now someone who I trusted to follow me on my personal Instagram account has been consistently informing The S*n newspaper of my private posts and stories.
“There has been so much information given to them about me, my friends and my family - all without my permission or knowledge. After a long time of trying to figure out who it could be, for various reasons, I had a suspicion.
“It's been tough keeping it to myself and not making any comment at all, especially when the stories have been leaked, however I had to. Now I know for certain which account it's come from. I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person has viewed them.
"It's.... Rebekah Vardy's account."
Eight months after Mrs Rooney published the revelation, Mrs Vardy decided to sue Mrs Rooney for libel under the Defamation Act 2013. Mrs Vardy has claimed that the accusations, which she vehemently denies, are defamatory.
She said that the statement has damaged her reputation and wrongly exposed her to public contempt, making it libellous. Mrs Vardy has said the accusations had caused her to become the subject of “widespread abuse” and that her children were also being “abused” at their schools.
During the first stage of proceedings, a judge ruled in November 2020 that Mrs Rooney’s statement did suggest to an ordinary reader that Mrs Vardy had “frequently abused her status as a trusted follower of Mrs Rooney’s personal Instagram account”. Mrs Vardy has consistently denied being the source of the leak and argued that many different people had access to her account.
In the upcoming high-profile trial, Mrs Rooney’s team need to prove that the accusations are substantially true to justify the initial statement, otherwise she will face a potentially large fine for damages to cover the wrong suffered. The case has already appeared before the High Court multiple times to decide what evidence can be used in court, and has cost more than £1 million in legal fees.
The trial between Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney is due to begin on Tuesday, May 10.
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