Coleen and Wayne Rooney have skipped the last day of the Wagatha Christie trial.
The duo were not seen arriving to the Royal Courts of Justice today for the final day of the £3million case between Coleen and Rebekah Vardy. The case was expected to finish yesterday but barristers were given extra time to prepare their final arguments.
It means that the Rooneys will miss today's hearing, as they are taking their children on holiday.
Their barrister David Sherborne told the High Court it was a "long-standing travel arrangement" and that both Wayne and Coleen had sent their "individual apologies" and "that they intend no disrespect to the court".
"They had a long-standing travel arrangement with their four children which was booked in advance by their lawyers," Mr Sherborne said as he also revealed the couple had believed Thursday was not going to be a day the court was sitting.
The judge, Mrs Justice Steyn, said in response: "I don’t take offence."
Rebekah arrived at the trial alone at around 10am. Her husband Jamie was not present. He is set to play for Leicester City tonight as they take on Chelsea. Today's appearance also marked the first time Rebekah has appeared during this trial with her hair down.
The Wagatha Christie battle began when Coleen accused Rebekah's Instagram account of being the one to leak stories about her to the media. She said she had screenshots of the private Instagram stories being seen by Rebekah's account alone.
Rebekah has always denied she leaked the stories.
At today's hearing, Mr Sherborne said Rooney did not want to go for a trial and nor did her husband. "She made that clear. We say what Mrs Rooney said in her post was true. It's what she believes even more so now," he said.
Sherborne added the Rooneys had been put through the stress "of a trial and for what?" as he claimed Vardy's case had "shrunk to almost nothing if not entirely disintegrated". He said: "It's a slither of a case. It's simply a case of whether Mrs Vardy, an admitted leaker herself, knew what Ms Watt was doing." He also said he wondered "why on earth this case has been allowed to get this far".
He said the judge needed to rule on two things - whether the post was substantially true and if it was a statement of a matter of public interest. He added there had been a "deliberate deletion and destruction" of evidence, which is denied by Vardy.
He also said the court had also not heard from several key witnesses including Ms Watt, who had not given evidence, nor had any of the journalists involved in publishing the leaked stories. Vardy's husband Jamie had also "remained silent .. at least in this courtroom".
He urged the judge to draw that the disappearance of evidence was "deliberate" and designed to hide Vardy's actions.
During this week's explosive court hearing, Coleen slammed messages sent between Vardy and her agent as "evil and uncalled for", and in court, she said: "She has got no need to talk about me or my Instagram. I wouldn’t even know what Caroline Watt looked like. I have never spoken to her, never met her. The messages that went on between them were evil and uncalled for. Speaking about someone they do not know.
"I’m the total opposite to what they describe. I’m not a bad person. The words they use are totally untrue. There’s no need for it because I have never done anything to them for them to monitor and stalk me."
