Wayne Rooney to give evidence in ongoing Wagatha Christie trial

Tue, 10 May, 2022 - 16:02

Jess Glass, PA

Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney have arrived at the High Court in London for their high-profile libel battle.

Mrs Rooney accused Mrs Vardy of leaking “false stories” about her private life to the media in October 2019, after she said she carried out a months-long “sting operation”.

Coleen Rooney arrives at the Royal Courts Of Justice, London (Ian West/PA)

The wife of former England star Wayne Rooney was dubbed “Wagatha Christie” after publicly claiming her fellow footballer’s wife shared three fake stories, which she posted on her personal Instagram account, with The Sun newspaper.

They included Mrs Rooney, 36, travelling to Mexico for a “gender selection” procedure, her planning to return to TV, and the basement flooding at her home.

Here is what is happening in court today.

4:30pm:

Under questioning, Rebekah Vardy confirmed that she did not tell Coleen Rooney that her agent Caroline Watt had access to her private Instagram account.

Court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook of

David Sherborne asked her: “You agree with me that if Ms Watt was looking at people’s private Instagram accounts through the use of your account that you’ve given her, that would be wrong, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” Mrs Vardy replied, later adding: “I didn’t know that’s what was happening.”

4:22pm:

Rebekah Vardy was asked whether it was “respectful” of Peter Andre’s “right not to share this information” about their sexual encounter with a newspaper.

She replied: “I was forced into a situation by my ex-husband to do this. It is something that I deeply regret… It is not nice to read and I understand why this is being used and to me this is mudslinging and I was also threatened with mudslinging by Mrs Rooney’s team.”

Asked the question again by Coleen Rooney’s barrister David Sherborne, Mrs Vardy said: “The circumstances around it were completely different.” She later said she did not ask Mr Andre for his permission or tell him it was going to happen in advance.

Mr Sherborne asked: “Did you feel particularly strongly about the size of his manhood that it should be made public?” Mrs Vardy replied: “It was something that I was forced to say.”

4:15pm:

Coleen Rooney’s barrister David Sherborne asked Rebekah Vardy questions about an interview she gave to the News Of The World about Mrs Vardy’s claimed sexual encounter with singer Peter Andre.

Mr Sherborne showed what appeared to an A3 print out of the article to Mrs Vardy in the witness box before reading the headline: “Peter’s hung like a small chipolata, shaved, slobbery, lasts five minutes”.

The barrister read excerpts from the article, in which it was claimed Mr Andre had managed “just five minutes of sex with Rebekah” and in which she said he had “the smallest trouser equipment I’ve ever seen” that was like a “miniature chipolata”.

Mr Sherborne suggested to Mrs Vardy that the News Of The World was the “highest circulating newspaper at the time”, read by some four million people.

4:01pm:

Rebekah Vardy told the court: “I didn’t give any information to a newspaper”.

Under questioning from Coleen Rooney’s lawyer David Sherborne she agreed with his proposition that it was “wrong” and “upsetting” for someone to secretly pass on another person’s information that they didn’t want shared.

Mrs Vardy later added: “I didn’t leak anything to anyone.”

Rebekah Vardy has repeatedly denied leaking information to newspapers in the first few minutes of her cross-examination by Mrs Rooney’s barrister.

David Sherborne said: “You wouldn’t want to be called a leaker, would you?” Mrs Vardy replied: “I have been called a leaker and it’s not nice.” The barrister later asked if Mrs Vardy respected people’s privacy, to which she replied: “Yes, I do.”

3:52pm:

Rebekah Vardy was sworn in as a witness in the court room.

3:44pm:

David Sherborne told the High Court Rebekah Vardy had the means, motive and opportunity to leak stories about Coleen Rooney.

He said: “We submit Mrs Vardy had the means, access to Mrs Rooney’s private Instagram account.

“She has the opportunity through her connections to journalists at the Sun and she has the motive to have secretly passed on information from Mrs Rooney’s account in the way that we say she did.”

“Mrs Vardy was responsible for the secret passing on of information that is the subject of this claim,” he added.

3:37pm:

David Sherborne said that Rebekah Vardy’s case has changed since her original claim.

“What was said at the time about possible alternatives is now not put forward by Mrs Vardy and that is because she and Ms Watt concocted a series of lies at the time,” he told the court.

The barrister said it was “particularly telling” how Mrs Vardy and Caroline Watt reacted when Coleen Rooney said she suspected someone had leaked an incorrect story about a car crash, arguing they were “spooked”.

“It is Mrs Vardy’s reaction to this that shows she was responsible for the leaks,” Mr Sherborne said.

3:11pm:

David Sherborne described what he called a series of “most improbable events” that had affected the disclosure of evidence in the case from Rebekah Vardy and those around her.

This included Caroline Watt’s “poor unfortunate phone” falling into the North Sea “within days” of the court ordering that, even though she was not a party to proceedings, it should be searched for disclosure.

“What terrible luck,” Mr Sherborne said.

2:59pm:

David Sherborne told the court that the trial would hear evidence from Coleen Rooney as well as husband Wayne.

Rooney’s cousin and Mrs Rooney’s brother will also provide evidence, he added.

Mr Sherborne explained that the witnesses would say that “Mrs Rooney doesn’t have a proactive PR… unlike Mrs Vardy”.

“And unlike Mrs Vardy again, she is not so keen to get lots of self-promotion or favourable coverage,” he added. “That was the motive, why Mrs Vardy leaked information to The Sun.” Mr Sherborne said witnesses will also explain that Mrs Rooney “didn’t tell any of them she was making this sting operation”.

He said it was a “surprise” to them when her post accusing Mrs Vardy was made, he added.

David Sherborne told the court that the trial would hear evidence from Coleen Rooney as well as husband Wayne.

Rooney’s cousin and Mrs Rooney’s brother will also provide evidence, he added.

Mr Sherborne explained that the witnesses would say that “Mrs Rooney doesn’t have a proactive PR… unlike Mrs Vardy”.

He said it was a “surprise” to them when her post accusing Mrs Vardy was made, he added.

2:52pm:

David Sherborne continued: “If (Rebekah Vardy) gave Ms Watt the gun and the bullets, told her where to target them, told her what was happening and when, that makes her just as responsible as the person who pulled the trigger. To use an analogy, it is like hiring a hitman or woman.” He said there were, in text message exchanges between Mrs Vardy and Ms Watt, examples of the pair discussing leaking other people’s private information.

This included one exchange, he told the court, in which Mrs Vardy said “I just don’t want it coming back on me”. He said Ms Watt replied “I can tell someone” and Mrs Vardy answered by saying “yeah, do it”.

The barrister said it was notable Mrs Vardy did not say “no”, nor that she would not do that, nor that she had never done so.

He added: “Mrs Vardy is just as responsible for leaking information which someone else doesn’t want shared with the press, even if she doesn’t pull the trigger and send it across herself. Of course, we say the same is true of leaks from Mrs (Coleen) Rooney’s private Instagram account.” Mr Sherborne said there were “only two real suspects” and that any suggestion someone may have hacked into Mrs Rooney’s account to access her private information was “wild speculation, wild theory, because there is no evidence whatsoever to support it”. He added: “There is plenty of evidence, inference and circumstance we say, that Mrs Vardy knew and approved of Ms Watt (leaking private information).”

David Sherborne claimed there were “only two real suspects” over the leaking of Coleen Rooney’s private information, Rebekah Vardy and her agent Ms Watt.

He said there were some “hopeless, speculative theories” that a hacker was involved, but the barrister dismissed these as “wild speculation” with no evidence to support them.

Mr Sherborne added: “It comes back to the two suspects, Caroline Watt and Mrs Vardy herself. We say they were both in it together”.

The barrister said it was “more likely than not that Mrs Vardy knew and approved Ms Watt passing in secret information about Mrs Rooney’s private Instagram account to The Sun”.

2:44pm:

David Sherborne said that when someone in the “circle” of people given access to information on social media leaks it to a newspaper “it is deeply upsetting”.

“It makes you paranoid as well, who’s doing it?” he added.

“It’s an inescapable fact that someone you trust to be invited into that group of people has chosen to secretly pass information to which they have access, without any knowledge or consent to a newspaper.

“It demonstrates a lack of respect for your privacy which is a very important element of this case now”.

2:32pm:

Coleen Rooney’s barrister David Sherborne said that she was appearing in the courtroom “not because she she wants to, she’s here because she has to be”.

“She’s been brought here because of something she wrote,” he added.

“She didn’t want to have to write it any more than she wants to be here.” Mr Sherborne said social media could be used “to share things that you would rather the world didn’t know”.

“That was the point of her (Mrs Rooney’s) private Instagram account”.

David Sherborne said that when someone in the “circle” of people given access to information on social media leaks it to a newspaper “it is deeply upsetting”.

“It makes you paranoid as well, who’s doing it?” he added.

“It demonstrates a lack of respect for your privacy which is a very important element of this case now”.

2:15pm:

Hugh Tomlinson said that it was “unfair” for Coleen Rooney not to put her allegations to Rebekah Vardy before making the social media post containing them.

Continuing to address the court after a break for lunch, the barrister said: “In this case no opportunity was given to respond, there was absolutely no urgency to this.

“It was not something which was an immediate news story that would disappear if time was spent on giving an opportunity to respond.”

“Mrs Rooney could have been in touch with Mrs Vardy.

“She never did.”

1:39pm:

A suggestion that Mrs Vardy and her agent were involved in a “conspiracy” and “campaign of deletion” in relation to evidence in the case is “completely baseless”, Mr Tomlinson said.

The court has previously heard that Ms Watt lost her phone in the North Sea before further information could be extracted from it.

Mr Tomlinson told the court that it had not been suggested “that Mrs Vardy was anywhere near the North Sea at the time” nor that she “knew anything about it”.

He said there was a “credible, ordinary, boring explanation” behind media files on Mrs Vardy’s Whatsapp no longer being available.

“It’s a very well-known and common feature in everyone’s life that from time to time electronic documents are lost for all kinds of reasons,” he said, adding: “This is something that happens to us all that some times documents are lost”.

Mr Tomlinson claimed the issue had affected Mrs Rooney too, telling the court that her PR’s email account was deleted in February 2020 and as a result “a crucial email about one of the articles has gone”.

1:22pm:

Mrs Rooney’s barrister David Sherborne argued his client had proved her case despite Mrs Vardy and her agent Ms Watt “deliberately” destroying evidence.

Mr Sherborne said in written submissions: “The defendant has shown that, despite the deliberate destruction of evidence by the claimant and Ms Watt, despite obstruction and obfuscation to try to hide relevant documents, and despite the lies of both the claimant and Ms Watt, it is clear, at least on the balance of probabilities, which is all that is necessary, that the leaks arose from the habitual and established practice of the claimant: leaking information about those she knew via Ms Watt to The Sun and others.

“This was a sustained betrayal of the defendant’s trust.” Mr Sherborne added that Mrs Rooney had posted a “warning shot” about her concerns over leaks from her private Instagram account.

He continued: “In response to the despair of the warning shot posts, the claimant and Ms Watt laughed … before turning back to their squalid work.”

Mr Tomlinson told the court that Whatsapp exchanges between Mrs Vardy and her agent do not demonstrate that she was responsible for leaking stories as alleged by Mrs Rooney.

Commenting on a message in which Mrs Vardy said she would “love to leak those stories”, he said: “They are not stories about Mrs Rooney.” “It’s accepted that on some occasions the leaking of stories was discussed between Mrs Vardy and Ms Watt,” Mr Tomlinson said.

He added that “none of those discussions”, with one exception, related to any of the stories at the centre of the libel action.

He said Mrs Rooney previously made a social media post about a car accident she was involved in in Washington.

“Ms Watt was approached by a Sun journalist who asked her whether it was true that Mrs Rooney had been in a car crash,” Mr Tomlinson said.

He said that when the story was published it was “full of all kinds of details … none of which are related to the post in any way”.

“Either the Sun journalist had made up most of the story, which I’m sure is entirely unlikely, or there was another source, nothing to do with Mrs Vardy or Ms Watt,” Mr Tomlinson said.

1pm:

Mrs Vardy “was some times irritated” by Mrs Rooney, Mr Tomlinson told the court.

He claimed there was a “glaring absence” of evidence to prove the accusations Mrs Rooney made against her fellow footballer’s wife.

Mr Tomlinson said Mrs Rooney’s legal team “tries to fill these gaps” by relying on disclosed Whatsapp messages between Mrs Vardy and her agent Ms Watt.

He said these were private conversations between two friends and “show that in private Mrs Vardy often uses strong language”.

“What those exchanges show was that Mrs Vardy was sometimes irritated by Mrs Rooney, rightly or wrongly,” he added.

“She said rude things about her, she used four-letter words.

“It’s not unknown for people to talk in private conversation in ways that they wouldn’t talk about in public.”

12:44pm:

Mr Tomlinson continued addressing Mrs Justice Steyn by saying there is “no information” in any of the evidence that demonstrates Mrs Vardy even viewed Mrs Rooney’s Instagram posts during the “sting operation”.

He told the court: “Mrs Vardy does not actually know what happened, she doesn’t know how this information got into the press, all she knows is what she did and she knows it wasn’t her.” The barrister said Mrs Rooney’s case is “entirely inferential” and that another line of her argument is to say Mrs Vardy has been “destroying evidence, she has deleted it and she has conspired to conceal all evidence of her wrongdoing”.

He added: “This is untrue, there is no such campaign of deletion. The reason there is no such evidence against Mrs Vardy is because she didn’t do it.” Mr Tomlinson said that in the 2019 post, Mrs Rooney “said she knew for certain” Mrs Vardy had leaked information so to say now that there is no evidence because it has been deleted is “completely inconsistent” with the allegation she made at the time.

12:29pm:

The libel case between Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney is “essentially about betrayal”, Mrs Rooney’s barrister has said.

In written submissions, David Sherborne said: “The central question that the court needs to decide now seems to be whether: it is Coleen Rooney that was betrayed by Rebekah Vardy because she knew Caroline Watt, her PR and close confidante, was leaking Mrs Rooney’s private information to The Sun and condoned this, as well as directly leaking information herself, or whether, instead, it is Mrs Vardy that was betrayed by Caroline Watt because she had leaked this information without Mrs Vardy knowing it and had lied to her by denying all along that she had leaked anything.” Mr Sherborne added Mrs Rooney is defending the claim on truth and public interest grounds.

Mr Tomlinson said that if Ms Watt was the source of leaked stories “that’s not something that Mrs Vardy knew anything about and it’s certainly something that she did not approve of or authorise Ms Watt to do”.

He added that the developments around the agent “makes no change at all” in Mrs Vardy’s pleaded case.

“Her case is and always has been that she did not leak Mrs Rooney’s information from her private Instagram to the Sun, whether directly or using the agency of a third party”.

Mr Tomlinson added of Mrs Vardy: “She’s not able to say of her friend, she was the leaker. She doesn’t know.”

12:17pm:

Mr Tomlinson added that there was “no irrefutable evidence” that Mrs Vardy was the person who Mrs Rooney was concerned about leaking her private information.

“Mrs Rooney has no direct evidence of any of this,” he told the court.

He said Mrs Rooney’s post that triggered the Wagatha Christie dispute was “obviously defamatory”.

“Mrs Rooney was accusing Mrs Vardy of betraying her and betraying her friends and family by disclosing this private information,” he said.

“That allegation was false, Mrs Vardy had not done that.”

Explaining the workings of English libel law for those following the case, Mr Tomlinson said: “Mrs Vardy is entitled to damages for defamation unless Mrs Rooney can establish a defence that is known to the law.” He later added: “The defendant [Mrs Rooney] must prove the substantial truth of the allegation that’s made.”

12:13pm: Hugh Tomlinson representing Vardy, said Mrs Rooney said in the post that she had saved and screenshotted the original newspaper stories which showed that, as she claimed, Mrs Vardy’s account had saved and shared her Instagram posts.

He told the court: “We say that this careful investigation was flawed from the start because it is obvious … anybody who knows anything about the operation of social media knows the fact somebody has an account does not necessarily mean that they are the only person who accessed it.” He said the meaning of the post was that Mrs Rooney had made the accusation against Mrs Vardy.

Mr Tomlinson also said that Mrs Rooney had “revelled in” being dubbed “Wagatha Christie”, and had shared posts which mocked her up as the renowned crime writer Agatha Christie.

Mr Tomlinson told the court that the evidence around Mrs Rooney’s posting of three “false” stories on her private Instagram account as part of her effort to identify who was leaking information about her was “flawed”.

He said a Sun newspaper article about Mrs Rooney returning to TV had “nothing” to do with the “so-called TV decisions” post that she made.

“The post referred to I’m A Celebrity, the article referred to Strictly Come Dancing,” Mr Tomlinson said.

Mr Tomlinson claimed that “the idea that Mrs Rooney was going to go back into TV” had been repeated by a number of news outlets “several times” in 2019.

“Whoever put it out there, it hadn’t come from the fake post,” he said.

Mr Tomlinson claimed that Mrs Rooney had “grudgingly accepted” that there was “a problem in relation to this post” which does not “match up entirely” with the article.

“They don’t really have anything to do with each other,” he added.

12pm: Hugh Tomlinson QC, representing Rebekah Vardy, began setting out her case to the court.

He said that, on October 9 2019, Mrs Rooney published a post to more than two million followers on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook which “accused Mrs Vardy of being the person who, over a period of years, had consistently and regularly leaked information about her, her friends and her family, to The Sun newspaper”.

He told the court “it was expressed in a dramatic style”, referring to the way Mrs Rooney posted “It’s ………. Rebekah Vardy’s account”.

Mr Tomlinson said that, as a result of the post, Mrs Vardy – who was seven months pregnant at the time – and her family were subjected to horrible abuse, including one post calling her an “evil rat-faced bitch” and others saying she should die and her baby should be “put in an incinerator”.

He said her husband Jamie Vardy was also subjected to chants about her during football matches.

Mr Tomlinson said: “The allegation was false, Mrs Vardy had not leaked information about Mrs Rooney, her friends and family to The Sun newspaper.” He added that, if information was leaked “this was not something that was done with Mrs Vardy’s knowledge or authority”.

Mr Tomlinson said the affair and subsequent libel case had become the subject of intense press coverage and a source of “entertainment” in the media, being referred to as “Wag Wars” and “Wagatha Christie”.

He added: “This is far from being an entertaining case, it has been profoundly distressing and disturbing.” He said Mrs Rooney’s post on Instagram was liked about 93,000 times while the Twitter post received more than 300,000 likes.

Mr Tomlinson added: “(Mrs Vardy) needs to be able to clear her name through this case, so she can move on from this terrible episode.”

11:39am: Mrs Justice Steyn has allowed Mrs Rooney’s barrister to introduce a witness statement from Harpreet Robertson, who was family liaison officer for the Football Association during the Euro 2016 and World Cup 2018 international football tournaments.

The judge said: “Although I accept that there was no order allowing for responsive evidence, nevertheless, it is an important consideration in assessing why the default occurred, that the reason was in circumstances where the defendant had provided all other statements on time.

“This statement had not been provided because it was not, at that stage, intended to give it and only thought necessary to give it on receipt of the claimant’s statement.” Allowing the statement to be used in the case, Mrs Justice Steyn concluded: “It does not seem to me that it causes any prejudice to admit this statement.”

11:35am: Hugh Tomlinson QC, representing Mrs Vardy, said the bid to introduce the evidence of Ms Robertson was “hopeless” and “wholly misconceived”.

He said the issues it tackled were “very, very remote” from those in the libel case, and that Ms Robertson’s position had been known about by Mrs Rooney’s legal team for a year.

Mr Tomlinson said Ms Robertson’s evidence was therefore not “a bolt of lightening from the blue”, adding that it was “utterly worthless” as some of it was based on what she was told by an unnamed member of the touring party.

“It is a hopeless application that should not have been made and is a waste of the court’s time,” Mr Tomlinson said.

11:24am: Mrs Rooney’s barrister David Sherborne asked Mrs Justice Steyn for permission to introduce a witness statement from Harpreet Robertson, who was family liaison officer for the Football Association during the Euro 2016 and World Cup 2018 international football tournaments.

Mr Sherborne said the statement was “responsive” to evidence in Mrs Vardy’s statement that at the Euros in 2016, where she first got to know Mrs Rooney, her friends sat behind Mrs Rooney because they were the “nearest seats available”.

The barrister said in court documents: “In fact, Ms Robinson explains that this is untrue.

“Ms Robinson recalls the seats reserved for (Mrs Vardy) were seats 20-25 of the fifth row, while (Mrs Rooney) was correctly sat in seats 1-6 of the eighth row.

“The seats behind (Mrs Rooney) were reserved for Ms Robinson and security, and when she asked them to move the guests refused, in abusive terms.”

Mr Sherborne told the court Mrs Vardy had introduced this evidence into her witness statement to “suggest that from the outset she was friendly and respectful to Mrs Rooney”.

He added: “That goes to her motive for leaking information – she, of course, denies that.

“We say this is a constant theme of her witness statement that she was friendly and kind to Mrs Rooney, and was therefore unlikely to leak anything.” Mr Sherborne said Ms Robertson’s statement also “addresses the fallout from (Mrs Vardy’s) orchestration of the photograph outside the restaurant in St Petersburg during the 2018 World Cup”.

11:19am: Rebekah Vardy knew Coleen Rooney was “posting fake stories” to see if they would be leaked to the media, her barrister has said.

In written submissions, Mrs Vardy’s barrister Hugh Tomlinson QC said: “She did not directly leak any information from Mrs Rooney’s private Instagram account to The Sun, nor did she do so indirectly by ‘approving or condoning’ anyone else to do so on her behalf.” He said that the “candid” WhatsApp messages previously heard in court between Mrs Vardy and her agent Caroline Watt show that while “from time to time they did discuss ‘leaking’ information to the press” only one post is mentioned, in circumstances where journalists already knew the information.

Mr Tomlinson continued: “Furthermore, it is plain from the WhatsApp exchanges that Mrs Vardy was aware that Mrs Rooney was posting fake stories in order to see whether anyone would leak them, as well as the fact that she had previously been a suspect.

“She, like Mrs Rooney, believed that someone was leaking information from Mrs Rooney’s private Instagram but didn’t know who it was and thought it must be her PR as she couldn’t see why anyone would be ‘arsed with selling stories on her’.”

11:12am: Rebekah Vardy “has no personal knowledge” of an incident where her agent’s phone fell into the North Sea, the High Court has been told.

The court previously heard that Mrs Vardy’s agent and friend Caroline Watt’s phone fell into the sea after a boat she was on hit a wave before further information could be extracted from it in August 2021.

Mrs Vardy’s barrister Hugh Tomlinson QC said in his written arguments: “Mrs Vardy has no personal knowledge as to this incident. All she knows is what has been said by Ms Watt.

“It has not been suggested that Mrs Vardy had any involvement with this and it cannot possibly be relied on as evidence of wrongdoing by Mrs Vardy.”

10:54am: Rebekah Vardy “had no choice” but to bring the libel claim against Coleen Rooney to “establish her innocence and vindicate her reputation”, the High Court has been told.

In written submissions, her barrister Hugh Tomlinson QC also said: “The allegation in the post was and remains false: Mrs Vardy had not leaked information about Mrs Rooney or her friends and family to the Sun newspaper from her private Instagram account.

“Mrs Rooney did not have the ‘irrefutable’ evidence that she claimed to have had: her so-called ‘careful investigation’ was nothing of the sort.

“If anyone had been leaking information from Mrs Rooney’s private Instagram this was not done with Mrs Vardy’s knowledge or approval.” He continued: “Mrs Vardy made strenuous but unsuccessful attempts to settle the case but the post was not taken down.

“As result, Mrs Vardy had no choice but to bring this libel action to establish her innocence and vindicate her reputation.”

10:16am: Coleen Rooney has arrived at the High Court in central London ahead of the trial of her libel dispute with Rebekah Vardy.

Mrs Rooney was accompanied by her husband, former England star Wayne Rooney.

Wearing a black suit and with her foot in a brace, she entered the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand by the front entrance, flanked by a crowd of photographers.

Rebekah Vardy arrived at court moments after Mrs Rooney entered the building.

Mrs Vardy wore sunglasses and a long blue-buttoned dress.

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