Rebekah Vardy

Coleen Rooney, the wife of former England soccer captain Wayne, emerged victorious in her high-profile libel match with the spouse of one of his ...

The intrigue began almost three years ago when Rooney became suspicious about stories appearing in the Sun tabloid involving information she had put on her personal Instagram account. “I find that it is, unfortunately, necessary to treat Ms Vardy’s evidence with very considerable caution,” Steyn said. The judge, Justice Karen Steyn, said in her ruling that Rooney had successfully proved her allegation was “substantially true.” She concluded that Vardy knew and condoned details being leaked to the Sun by her agent Caroline Watt.

Judge Karen Steyn on Friday cleared Coleen Rooney of libeling Rebekah Vardy by claiming that Vardy had leaked her private social media posts to the tabloid ...

Watt’s phone, which was sought by Rooney’s lawyers as evidence, was reported to have fallen into the North Sea. The case, heard at the High Court in May, was a media sensation. In an October 2019 social media post to almost 2 million followers, she revealed: “It’s ................ Rebekah Vardy’s account.” Both women testified during the trial, with Vardy several times breaking down in tears. The stories — including one about a fictitious basement flood at the Rooneys' house and another reporting Coleen Rooney was trying to revive her TV career — duly appeared in The Sun. The case has reportedly cost each side more than 1 million pounds ($1.2 million) in legal fees. Then there was the amateur detective work that led to Rooney’s accusation. Vardy’s lawyers said Watt’s health was too fragile for her to take the stand. “Nothing of which Mrs. Vardy has been accused, nor any of the findings in this judgment, provide any justification or excuse for subjecting her or her family, or any other person involved in this case, to such vitriol,” Steyn said. The judge was scathing about Vardy’s credibility as a witness, saying some of her evidence was “manifestly inconsistent with the contemporaneous documentary evidence, evasive or implausible.” Rooney, in contrast, was “honest and reliable,” the judge said. In a devastating blow to Vardy, who launched the libel suit to defend her reputation, the judge said Rooney's allegation was “substantially true.” Steyn said it was likely that Vardy's agent, Caroline Watt, had passed Rooney's private information to The Sun newspaper, and that ”Mrs. Vardy knew of and condoned this behavior." V ardy, who sued after Rooney accused her in 2019 of sharing private Instagram content with The Sun, said she was “extremely sad and disappointed at the decision.”

A High Court judge rules that "significant parts" of Rebekah Vardy's evidence are "not credible".

Mrs Justice Steyn said she accepted "the reveal post was on a matter of public interest... But she added: "The evidence... But she added: "It was not reasonable to believe that it was in the public interest to publish the reveal post, without taking any steps to put the allegation to Mrs Vardy and give her an opportunity to respond." "It is not the result that I had expected, nor believe was just. Firstly, Mrs Vardy's legal bill will be enormous. Mrs Justice Steyn concluded that Mrs Vardy had"a degree of self-deception" about her role in disclosing information to The Sun. "Although significant parts of Mrs Vardy's evidence were not credible, my assessment is that she is genuinely offended by the accusation made against her by Mrs Rooney in the reveal post." "In my judgement, it is likely that Ms Vardy deliberately deleted her WhatsApp chat with Ms Watt, and that Ms Watt deliberately dropped her phone in the sea," she said. But the judge said the likelihood that the loss of the phone was accidental was "slim". The judge said of Mrs Vardy that "significant parts of her evidence were not credible", while she added: "In my judgement, Ms Rooney was an honest and reliable witness." Mrs Justice Steyn said it was "likely" that Mrs Vardy's agent at the time, Caroline Watt, "undertook the direct act" of passing information to The Sun. Mrs Rooney said she was "pleased" the ruling had gone in her favour, adding "it was not a case I ever sought or wanted".

Rebakah Vardy has lost her High Court libel case against Coleen Rooney. Vardy claimed Rooney had damaged her reputation with her “Wagatha Christie” ...

The Leicester striker denied the meeting ever took place, saying: “Wayne is talking nonsense.” Rooney famously posted on social media in October 2019 that she believed Vardy was responsible for leaking content from Rooney’s private Instagram account. “Ms Vardy did not call her close friend and agent, Ms Watt, as a witness,” today’s ruling read.

Rather than clearing name, ruling leaves Vardy with legal defeat and destroyed reputation.

He said it would be an “extraordinarily complicated conspiracy” to have deleted all the evidence. The legal team for Rooney, 36, admitted to the court that they did not have any smoking gun proving definitively that Vardy was responsible for the leaks. She also said that Vardy and her agent Caroline Watt were likely to have deliberately destroyed potentially damning evidence. There was widespread mockery in court of the loss of potentially crucial evidence by Vardy and those around her. She said it was not believable that Watt accidentally dropped her mobile phone in the North Sea shortly after a legal request was made to search its She said: “It was not a case I ever sought or wanted.

Almost three years ago, British TV presenter Coleen Rooney, wife of soccer legend Wayne Rooney, authored one of the greatest posts of all time, ...

“It is likely that Ms. Watt undertook the direct act, in relation to each post, of passing the information to a journalist at The Sun.” And so it ends. In February 2022, text message evidence was introduced in court showing that Vardy’s then-agent Caroline Watt had acted as courier between Vardy and the Sun. One such piece of evidence was a WhatsApp message Vardy had sent to Watt that said, “It wasn’t someone she trusted. “I have found that Ms. Vardy was party to the disclosure to The Sun of the Marriage, Birthday, Halloween, Pyjamas, Car Crash, Gender Selection, Babysitting and Flooded Basement Posts,” she wrote in her judgment. The case went to trial in May, and brought us such highlights as Vardy being asked questions like, “Did you or did you not know that the lads were fuming?” while under cross examination. Two days after the original post, Vardy gave an infamous interview to the Daily Mail, in which the reporter asked her if the two had argued over the phone. Half an hour after Rooney’s bombshell, Vardy dropped a Notes app statement, simultaneously denying that she had anything to do with the leaks while also laying the groundwork for an obtuse hacking defense.

Rebekah Vardy probably isn't buzzing at the ruling, a character assassination that has left her well and truly stung by libel.

She didn’t even blink at references to her husband’s repeated infidelities, didn’t stumble under questioning, but conducted herself like someone who truly has the courage of her convictions, and her convictions are that you don’t cross Coleen or her family. Rooney took a big risk in publicly accusing Vardy – or, to be precise “It’s………Rebekah Vardy’s account” – of leaking stories about her to the tabloids, because in English law the burden of proof falls on the person who made the defamatory claim. Vardy, by contrast, was more like a character on Dynasty, hysterically crying and collapsing in the witness box as Rooney’s barrister, David Sherborne, repeatedly read out her own words, from Vardy traded private details of her husband’s colleagues and their wives in the hope of currying positive coverage in the media. And like Streisand – who sued a website for featuring an image of her house, thereby drawing the world’s attention to it – she believed going to court was the best way to control her image. Like Wilde – who sued the Marquess of Queensberry for revealing his homosexuality – Vardy went to court to deny something that a rock could see was true: she’d passed on private stories about Rooney to the press.

Coleen Rooney was dubbed “Wagatha Christie," a play on the slang term “WAG” — wives and girlfriends of soccer stars — and the name of crime author Agatha ...

Both women testified during the trial, with Vardy several times breaking down in tears. In an October 2019 social media post to almost 2 million followers, she revealed: “It’s ……………. Rebekah Vardy’s account.” The stories — including one about a fictitious basement flood at the Rooneys’ house and another reporting Coleen Rooney was trying to revive her TV career — duly appeared in The Sun. In October 2019, Coleen posted a picture of a wine bottle, saying: “Needed after today… flood in the basement of our new house… Rebekah Vardy has lost her High Court libel battle with Coleen Rooney in the so-called Wagatha Christie trial.