Hilarious memes shared after Wagatha Christie verdict

‘It’s… Rebekah Vardy’s bank account!’ As WAG loses libel battle against Coleen Rooney, internet pokes fun at husband Jamie’s ‘lighter’ wallet and how £3m legal fees will postpone footballer’s retirement

Coleen Rooney reigned victorious as the long-awaited verdict in the sensational £3million Wagatha Christie trial was announced on Friday, with the WAG winning her libel battle against Rebekah Vardy.

And following the announcement of Coleen’s triumph at midday on Friday, Twitter was flooded with hilarious memes which poked fun at the ‘lighter’ wallet of Rebekah’s footballer husband Jamie and how his retirement will now have to be postponed due to the case’s monstrous legal fees.

The explosive three-year battle, centered on Coleen’s claims that Rebekah leaked information to The Sun based on posts from the former’s private Instagram account, has gripped the nation, with a packed two-week hearing at the High Court in May seeing both Rebekah, 40, and Coleen, 36, give dramatic testimony from the witness box.

‘It’s… Rebekah Vardy’s bank account!’ After the WAG (left) lost her libel battle against Coleen Rooney (right), the internet has poked fun at the ‘lighter’ wallet of husband Jamie and how his retirement will have to be postponed

Memes included a historic shot of Jamie looking annoyed on the football pitch, alongside the caption: ‘Jamie Vardy when he see’s Rebekah’s lawyers’ bill.’

Fans also wrote: ‘What Jamie Vardy will look like by the time he can afford to stop playing,’ alongside a photo of a rugged man,’ as well as, ‘It’s… Rebekah Vardy’s bank account.’

Others quipped that Rebekah had always been ‘skating on thin ice’ in reference to her stint on ITV’s Dancing On Ice, with some likening her loss to Amber Heard own recent libel trial against Johnny Depp.

Coleen today laid into the £3million cost of the disastrous Wagatha Christie libel brought by Rebekah who doggedly pursued the own goal High Court battle that has destroyed her reputation and saw her ‘effectively branded a liar’.

 

 

 Whoops! Memes included a historic shot of Jamie looking annoyed on the football pitch, alongside the caption: ‘Jamie Vardy when he see’s Rebekah’s lawyers’ bill’

Mrs Vardy and her footballer husband have been left with a multi-million pound legal bill after a judge ruled that swathes of her evidence given under oath had been ‘manifestly inconsistent, ‘not credible’ and was at times ‘evasive or implausible’. 

Mrs Rooney said in a statement that she was ‘pleased’ the ruling went in her favour but that she ‘never believed’ the case should have gone to court ‘at such expense in times of hardship for so many people when the money could have been far better spent helping others’.

She said: ‘It was not a case I ever sought or wanted. I never believed it should have gone to court at such expense in times of hardship for so many people when the money could have been far better spent helping others.

‘Both before and after my social media posts in October 2019, I made every effort to avoid the need for such a drawn out and public court case. All my attempts to do so were knocked back by Mrs (Rebekah) Vardy.

LOL: Following the announcement of Coleen’s triumph at midday on Friday, Twitter was flooded with hilarious memes which poked fun at the ‘lighter’ wallet of Rebekah’s footballer husband Jamie and how his retirement will now have to be postponed

‘This left me with no alternative but to go through with the case to defend myself and to end the repeated leaking of my private information to The Sun.

‘These leaks from my private Instagram account began in 2017. They continued for almost two years, intruding on my privacy and that of my family. Although I bear Mrs Vardy no ill-will, today’s judgment makes clear that I was right in what I said in my posts of October 2019.

‘Finally, I would like to thank all of my legal team, my family, friends and everyone who supported me, including the public, through this difficult and stressful time.’

Leading media lawyer Jonathan Coad said today that Rebekah had been ‘effectively branded a liar’ and said a self-infliected defeat in a case she had brought herself had been ‘a disaster’.

Rib-tickling: A montage of snaps showed Nicki Minaj laughing at the state of ‘Rebekah’s bank account’

The 40-year-old wife of Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy relentlessly pursued the case against her Wag rival Coleen Rooney for nearly three years after being accused of leaking private stories about Coleen and her family to The Sun newspaper.

The bombshell verdict from Court 13 of the High Court was handed down remotely online at noon by Mrs Justice Steyn just over two months after the hearing in May. Vardy’s failed libel suit has been branded the most ill-advised in history.

The High Court has found that Mrs Rooney’s social media post accusing her rival was ‘substantially true’ and that Mrs Vardy ‘knew of, condoned and was actively engaged’ in leaks to the media by her ex-agent Caroline Watt.

And in a damning assessment of Mrs Vardy’s evidence, the judge said ‘significant parts of [Vardy’s] evidence were not credible’ and at times her ‘evidence was manifestly inconsistent with the contemporaneous documentary evidence, evasive or implausible’. By contrast, the judge found that Coleen and her witnesses, including husband Wayne, ‘gave honest, reliable evidence.’

 

Hysterical: One user joked that actress Sheridan Smith will soon be playing Rebekah in a TV series based upon the trial

Mrs Justice Steyn also ruled that loss of WhatsApp messages between Mrs Vardy and Ms Watt was ‘deliberate rather than accidental’ – dismissing her agent’s claim that a phone fell into the North Sea when a ship hit a big wave.

In her ruling, the judge said it was ‘likely’ that Mrs 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.’

Good one! Others quipped that Rebekah had always been ‘skating on thin ice’ in reference to her stint on ITV’s Dancing On Ice, with some likening her loss to Amber Heard own recent libel trial against Johnny Depp

For a week in May, the case captivated millions who were left open-mouthed by the evidence including explosive and expletive-filled Whatsapp messages sent by Ms Vardy as well as Coleen’s evidence about leaking false stories about her private life to find who was giving them to the tabloids and how her marriage almost fell apart after her husband Wayne was caught drink-driving with a party girl.

The case was nicknamed ‘Wagatha Christie’ because of the amateur detective work that led to Coleen’s accusation about her rival.

Mrs Rooney, 36, had posted fake stories on Instagram to find out who was passing her private information to the press. Rooney said she had blocked all accounts from seeing her Instagram stories, apart from the one she suspected of being the leaker.

The High Court judgment that damns Rebekah Vardy

‘Significant’ parts of Vardy’s evidence ‘not credible’

Mrs Justice Steyn has found that Rebekah Vardy’s evidence in the trial was ‘manifestly inconsistent’ with other evidence on ‘many occasions’.

In her judgment, she said: ‘It was evident that Mrs Vardy found the process of giving evidence stressful and, at times, distressing’. 

The judge added: ‘Nevertheless, I find that it is, unfortunately, necessary to treat Mrs Vardy’s evidence with very considerable caution.

‘There were many occasions when her evidence was manifestly inconsistent with the contemporaneous documentary evidence, e.g. in relation to the World Cup 2018 and the photoshopped pictures, and others where she was evasive.’

Mrs Justice Steyn continued: ‘Mrs Vardy was generally unwilling to make factual concessions, however implausible her evidence. This inevitably affects my overall view of her credibility, although I have borne in mind that untruthful evidence may be given to mask guilt or to fortify innocence.’

On the ‘Davy Jones’ incident that left Vardy’s agent’s phone at the bottom of the North Sea

Mrs Justice Steyn said ‘In my judgment, 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.’ 

Rebekah Vardy’s agent and friend said her phone fell into the North Sea while she was filming the Scottish coastline in August 2021. 

Mrs Justice Steyn has said the likelihood that the loss of Caroline Watt’s phone was accidental was ‘slim’ and that it was ‘likely’ she deliberately dropped her phone into the sea.

In her judgment, the judge said that on August 4 2021, an order was made for Ms Watt’s phone to be inspected.

She said: ‘The timing is striking…the likelihood that the loss Ms Watt describes was accidental is slim.’

On her agent’s ‘breakdown’ 

Mrs Justice Steyn said that Rebekah Vardy chose not to call her agent Caroline Watt to give evidence partly because she knew her evidence ‘would be shown to be untrue’.

Ms Watt had been due to give evidence in support of Mrs Vardy, however, she withdrew her evidence pre-trial, with the court told it was due to health concerns.

The judge said: ‘I accept that her health has been adversely affected by these proceedings. However, I am compelled to the conclusion that the primary reason Ms Watt was so very reluctant to give evidence, and has suffered adversely from the pressure to do so, was that she knew that to a large extent the evidence in her statements was untrue’.

On whether Vardy leaked to The Sun 

The Court found that the Mrs Vardy, ‘together with Ms Watt’, ‘was party to the disclosure to The Sun’.

The judge said: ‘The Court considered it likely that Ms Watt undertook the direct act, in relation to each post, of passing the information to a journalist at The Sun, but found that the Claimant [Mrs Vardy] knew of, condoned and was actively engaged in this process’. 

On Wayne Rooney’s 2016 World Cup warning to Jamie Vardy that Rebekah should calm down

The judge said: ‘I accept Mr Rooney’s evidence that he was asked by the England Manager, Roy Hodgson, and the Assistant Manager, Gary Neville to speak to Mr Vardy about the fact that Ms Vardy’s media activities were causing problems and distractions that the Football Association wished to avoid’.

On Vardy’s seat grab at 2016 World Cup to be photographed with Coleen

Former Football Association family liaison officer Harpreet Robertson told how over two guests of Mrs Vardy became rude and abusive’ to her during the match.

Mrs Robertson claimed Rebekah’s evidence about why she sat behind Mrs Rooney at the England versus Wales game – that Mrs Rooney and family were in her seats and she took the nearest available to avoid a ‘fuss’ – was ‘simply untrue’.

The judge said she found Ms Robertson’s evidence ‘clear, consistent…and reliable’.

The judgment said: ‘It is highly likely that Ms Vardy ended up sitting directly behind Ms Rooney, in circumstances where that was not her allocated seat, due to a deliberate choice to put herself in the same shot.

‘It is probable that this is what she was advised to do by her PR agency. This would be consistent with her subsequent behaviour during the World Cup 2018, and Ms Watt’s involvement in seeking to ensure that they were able to obtain staged paparazzi photographs. In my judgment, Ms Vardy’s evidence on this matter was not credible. I do not accept she would have happily blurred into the background.’

In an October 2019 social media post that instantly went viral, she revealed: ‘It’s ……………. Rebekah Vardy’s account.’

Now Rebekah and her husband, with an estimated net worth between them of around £12million will have to find an estimated £3million to pay both sets of lawyers engaged in a libel suit branded the most ill-advised in history.

Wagatha Christie judgment in full

And perhaps even more costly, after being accused time after time of lying in court by 36-year-old Coleen’s rottweiler barrister David Sherborne, the mother-of-five has emerged not only emotionally bruised and battered, but with her credibility equally damaged.

During the seven-day case, Mr Sherborne highlighted the ‘unfortunate, improbable series of events’ offered by Rebekah’s side about devices which he claims could have contained key evidence in the case.

Rebekah said her WhatsApp messages were lost as she tried to transfer them to her solicitor; her husband said he lost his messages when his mobile telephone was hacked and her former agent Ms Watt claimed her phone accidentally dropped into the North Sea when her boat was hit by a wave during a Scottish holiday.

The judge said that Rebekah’s decision not to call her former agent Caroline Watt was ‘motivated to a substantial degree by concern for her friend’s welfare’, but added: ‘Nonetheless, the Court considered that the primary reason Ms Watt was so reluctant to give evidence, and has suffered adversely from the pressure to do so, was that she knew that to a large extent the evidence she was due to give (but then withdrew) was untrue.

‘And the Court inferred that the Claimant’s decision not to call Ms Watt was in part motivated by an assessment that her evidence, when tested in cross-examination, would have been likely to have undermined the Claimant’s case.’

In conclusion the judge said: ‘The Court found that the Claimant, together with Ms Watt, was party to the disclosure to The Sun of the Marriage, Birthday, Halloween, Pyjamas, Car Crash, Gender Selection, Babysitting and Flooded Basement Posts.

‘The Court considered it likely that Ms Watt undertook the direct act, in relation to each post, of passing the information to a journalist at The Sun, but found that the Claimant knew of, condoned and was actively engaged in this process.’

She added: ‘The Court drew the inference that additional information from the Defendant’s Private Instagram Account was likely to have been passed to The Sun by the Claimant and Ms Watt, acting together.’

The judge said she found that the case should be dismissed on the basis that Coleen ‘had succeeded in proving that the single meaning [of her Wagatha post] was substantially true.’

But Coleen’s alternative defence – that her post was in the public interest – was rejected, largely because Rebekah was given no opportunity to respond to the allegation before it was published.

The judge agreed with Coleen’s lawyer’s claim that the ‘series of improbable, unfortunate events which befell several piece of potentially key evidence in the case were deliberately destroyed by Rebekah and her agent Caroline Watt. Rebekah said she accidentally deleted messages from her mobile phone while trying to export them to her lawyers, while Ms Watt claimed to have accidentally dropped her mobile phone into the North Sea while ‘filming the coastline from a boat’.

The judge said: ‘The Court determined that the loss of both the Claimant’s and Ms Watt’s copies of their original WhatsApp conversation was deliberate rather than accidental.

‘The Court drew the inference that the missing data would have supported the Defendant’s truth defence in relation to the Gender Selection and Flooded Basement Posts, and more broadly.’

At the end of the 75-page judgement, Mrs Justice Steyn concluded: ‘For the reasons that I have given, the claim is dismissed.’

David Sherborne alleged Rebekah had purposefully chosen not to export potentially damaging evidence in the WhatsApp account, then disposed of the laptop used to make a back-up. He also claimed Rebekah had manually deleted large numbers of messages to and from her agent.

Asked what happened to nine months of missing WhatsApp chats between her and Ms Watts, Rebekah seemed unclear. She said she had ‘potentially switched phones’ during the period and lost the WhatsApp messages in the process but ‘I can neither confirm or deny that’.

Mr Sherborne alleged in reality it was a deliberate attempt to destroy evidence: ‘You deleted all of the messages between you and Caroline Watt.’

On other occasions, Rebekah changed her statements after evidence emerged in a series of WhatApp messages between her and Caroline Watt which contradicted her earlier accounts.

Only days before the case went to trial, Rebekah made her most dramatic shift in her evidence, stating that she believed it may well have been Miss Watts who leaked information to the press.

Mr Sherborne said this was a ‘radical change’, as Rebekah had previously said ‘Caroline Watt is not the source’.

But throwing her former agent and friend ‘under a bus’, as the lawyer put it would not be enough for Rebekah to escape her own role in the affair.

Rebekah claimed that Coleen had ‘weaponised her fanbase’ when, in 2019, she made the original accusation that Rebekah had leaked stories to the media.

The court heard comments Rebekah made in a 2019 interview following the original accusation: ‘Arguing with Coleen is like arguing with a pigeon. You can tell it that you are right and it is wrong but it’s still going to shit in your hair.’

During one exchange, Rebekah admitted knowing that her agent was discussing private information about Coleen with Sun journalist Andy Halls – yet insisted it was material the newspaper already knew and therefore not a fresh leak.

Mr Sherborne asked her: ‘You didn’t object at any stage to the fact that Ms Watt was plainly passing on information from Mrs Rooney’s private Instagram account to Andy Halls?’

Rebekah replied: ‘I didn’t think she was passing on any new information.’

Mr Sherborne said: ‘Take the word ‘new’ out of it. Did you, or did you not, know that Ms Watt was passing on information from Mrs Rooney’s private account?’

Whoops! Rebekah’s reputation lies in tatters today after she sensationally lost the ‘Wagatha Christie’ libel case with Coleen , who said the case was a waste of money and Vardy should never have taken it to court

Rebekah replied: ‘She was talking to Mr Halls about information that was already being discussed.’

In one WhatsApp exchange read to the court, Ms Watts said a reporter at the Sun wanted to know whether Rooney had definitely crashed her car, a detail that allegedly came from the private Instagram account. Vardy replied with the words: ‘Haha she deffo did.’

Towards the end of the third day in court, Rebekah slumped forward with her head in her hands during cross-examination. The court took regular breaks as she became tearful.

When Vardy began one answer by saying ‘if I’m honest’, the barrister shot back: ‘I would hope you’re honest because you’re sitting in a witness box.’

Bombshell: The post that accused Rebekah’s social media account of leaking stories. It sparked a £3million legal battle that Mrs Rooney has won after the judge agreed it was ‘substantially true’ and therefore not libellous

Rebekah was seen in tears and left early with her husband Jamie with Mrs Rooney’s barrister claiming her case ‘disintegrated’ during the week-long trial.

Mrs Rooney was said to be ‘supremely confident’ ahead of the verdict today and has reportedly told friends: ‘Whatever the judge decides, I’ve already won’. The source added: ‘She believes the evidence presented before the court has proved her case that Becky knew about leaks to the Press — and approved them.’

Media lawyer Mark Stephens predicted: ‘If the sting of the libel is true, in that Rebekah Vardy is a habitual leaker, then Coleen Rooney probably wins. Even if Rebekah does win, the measure of her damages will be very low. It could be as low as £1. If she is awarded that level of damages, she will end up paying the other side’s legal costs.’

Wagatha Christie timeline: How Coleen and Rebekah’s long-running, vicious war unfolded before the eyes of the world 

September 2017 to October 2019 – The Sun runs a number of articles about Coleen, including that she travelled to Mexico to look into baby ‘gender selection’ treatment, her plan to revive her TV career and the flooding of her basement.

October 9, 2019 – Coleen uses social media to accuse Rebekah of selling stories from her private Instagram account to the tabloids.

Coleen says she spent five months attempting to work out who was sharing information about her and her family based on posts she had made on her personal social media page.

After sharing a series of ‘false’ stories and using a process of elimination, Coleen claims they were viewed by one Instagram account, belonging to Rebekah.

Rebekah, then pregnant with her fifth child, denies the allegations and says various people had access to her Instagram over the years.

She claims to be ‘so upset’ by Coleen’s accusation, later adding: ‘I thought she was my friend but she completely annihilated me.’

The public dispute makes headlines around the world, with the hashtag #WagathaChristie trending.

How it all began: On October 9, 2019, Coleen Rooney, now 36, accused Rebekah Vardy, 40, of leaking ‘false stories’ about her to the press in an Instagram post (above) 

Shortly after Coleen’s public accusation, Rebekah – who was pregnant and on holiday in Dubai at the time – denied any involvement (above) 

February 13, 2020 – In a tearful appearance on ITV’s Loose Women, Rebekah says the stress of the dispute caused her to have severe anxiety attacks and she ‘ended up in hospital three times’. Coleen says in a statement that she does not want to ‘engage in further public debate’.

June 23, 2020 – It emerges that Rebekah has launched libel proceedings against Coleen.

Rebekah’s lawyers allege she ‘suffered extreme distress, hurt, anxiety and embarrassment as a result of the publication of the post and the events which followed’.

November 19-20, 2020 – The libel battle has its first High Court hearing in London. A judge rules that Coleen’s October 2019 post ‘clearly identified’ Rebekah as being ‘guilty of the serious and consistent breach of trust’.

Mr Justice Warby concludes that the ‘natural and ordinary’ meaning of the posts was that Rebekah had ‘regularly and frequently abused her status as a trusted follower of Coleen’s personal Instagram account by secretly informing The Sun of Coleen’s private posts and stories’.

February 8-9, 2022 – A series of explosive messages between Rebekah and her agent Caroline Watt – which Coleen’s lawyers allege were about her – are revealed at a preliminary court hearing.

The court is told Rebekah was not referring to Coleen when she called someone a ‘nasty bitch’ in one exchange with Ms Watt.

Coleen’s lawyers seek further information from the WhatsApp messages, but the court is told that Ms Watt’s phone fell into the North Sea after a boat she was on hit a wave, before further information could be extracted from it.

February 14 – Coleen is refused permission to bring a High Court claim against Ms Watt for misuse of private information to be heard alongside the libel battle. A High Court judge, Mrs Justice Steyn, says the bid was brought too late and previous opportunities to make the claim had not been taken.

April 13 – Ms Watt is not fit to give oral evidence at the upcoming libel trial, the High Court is told as the case returns for another hearing.

The agent revokes permission for her witness statement to be used, and withdraws her waiver which would have allowed Sun journalists to say whether she was a source of the allegedly leaked stories.

April 29 – Rebekah ‘appears to accept’ that her agent was the source of allegedly leaked stories, Coleen’s barrister David Sherborne tells the High Court. He argues that a new witness statement submitted by Rebekah suggests Ms Watt was the source but Rebekah claims she ‘did not authorise or condone her’.

Rebekah’s lawyer Hugh Tomlinson says the statement did not contain ‘any change whatever in the pleaded case’, with her legal team having no communication with Ms Watt.

He added: ‘In the court of public opinion Rebekah Vardy did herself a disservice with her evidence. The only winners here are the lawyers, who are going to be putting up Vardy or Rooney extensions in their homes.’

The two women have been locked in a bitter legal dispute since 2019 after Mrs Rooney, wife of former England captain Wayne, took to social media to accuse her fellow WAG Mrs Vardy of leaking stories to the press.

The packed hearings at the High Court in May saw both Rebekah, 40, and Coleen, 36, give dramatic testimony from the witness box in the case which centred on Coleen’s claims that her rival had leaked information to the Sun based on posts from her private Instagram account.

Coleen was also said to be ‘supremely confident’ of winning the case.

A friend reportedly said: ‘She believes the evidence presented before the court has proved her case that Becky knew about leaks to the Press — and approved them.’

In most cases, the verdict would be revealed to the parties in advance of the handing down of the verdict.

But legal sources have reportedly said: ‘It’s totally at the judge’s discretion but allows those involved to consider their legal position, especially in a high-profile case like this. On this occasion that has been totally denied — and they won’t know the result until the morning.’

The two women have been locked in a bitter legal dispute since 2019 after Mrs Rooney, wife of former England captain Wayne, took to social media to accuse her fellow WAG Mrs Vardy of leaking stories to the press.

In a now infamous ‘reveal’ post that went viral on social media, Mrs Rooney wrote: ‘It’s……….. Rebekah Vardy’s account.’

Mrs Vardy, wife of Leicester City and England player Jamie, hit back at the accusation. The mother of five strenuously denied having anything to do with stories being leaked to The Sun newspaper and took her former friend to court, suing her for libel.

In May, the pair faced each other over seven days in the High Court where Mrs Justice Steyn heard details of Mrs Rooney’s ‘sting’ operation, phones going missing in the North Sea, and Mrs Vardy comparing Peter Andre’s private parts to a chipolata.

The eventful and highly publicised trial cost up to £3million in lawyers’ fees, meaning today’s loser will pick up an eye-watering legal bill.

Accompanied to court every day by husband Wayne, Mrs Rooney told the trial that she planted a series of fake stories on her Instagram account after becoming suspicious that someone was leaking details of her private life to the tabloids.

The mother of four told the court that her WAG rival ‘monitored and stalked’ her private Instagram profile along with her former agent Caroline Watt.

The court was read a string of text messages between the pair, including Mrs Vardy telling Mrs Watt she would ‘love’ to leak stories about Mrs Rooney to the press.

Mrs Rooney’s barrister David Sherborne argued that Mrs Vardy had a ‘habitual and established practice’ of leaking information through Mrs Watt, who had to pull out of being a witness as she was deemed too unwell to give evidence.

On the final day of the trial, Mr Sherbourne said Mrs Vardy’s evidence in court was ‘highly unreliable’ and her accuracy ‘simply cannot be trusted’ as she had repeatedly changed her version of events.

A lighter moment came when Mr Sherborne quipped that the phone belonging to Mrs Watt, from which messages were lost after she claimed it fell into the North Sea, lay ‘in Davy Jones’ Locker’.

The court erupted with laughter when Mrs Vardy responded: ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know who Davy Jones is.’

Mrs Vardy, decked out in designer suits and six-inch stilettos, remained defiant on the stand and denied having anything to do with the leaks.

Her lawyers argued that she suffered ‘very serious harm to her reputation’ as a result of Mrs Rooney’s post and that the incident was ‘extremely upsetting’ for her and her family.

Mrs Vardy told of how she feared losing her unborn baby at the time of the social media storm as it was causing her such stress and anxiety.

Mrs Vardy, who was seven months’ pregnant at the time, said she was admitted to hospital three times in the final two months of her pregnancy and was left feeling suicidal.

Over seven days in courtroom number 13 at the Royal Courts of Justice, the two footballers’ wives each gave evidence as revelations from the case made daily headlines across the British press.

During the trial, Mrs Rooney’s barrister David Sherborne argued that Mrs Vardy had a ‘habitual and established practice’ of leaking information about those she knew – through her friend and former agent Caroline Watt – to The Sun newspaper.

Discussing Mrs Rooney’s viral ‘reveal’ post, 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 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 by passing on information from it to The Sun.

Mr Tomlinson said 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. 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.

Confident: According to claims, Mrs Rooney privately told pals: ‘Whatever the judge decides, I’ve already won’

Source: Read Full Article