Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney are due to clash again on Monday over “ludicrous” legal bills arising from their Wagatha Christie libel case battle.
Mrs Vardy, wife of Leicester City footballer Jamie Vardy, lost her high-profile claim against Mrs Rooney, 38, and now accuses her rival’s lawyers of “trying to pick her pockets”.
In July 2022, a High Court judge ordered the 42-year-old to pay 90 per cent of Mrs Rooney’s costs after ruling her viral social media post accusing Mrs Vardy of leaking private information to the press was “substantially true”.
The Sun reports Wayne Rooney’s wife is accused of grossly inflating her £1.8 million costs, include £2,000 for one lawyer to stay at the five-star Nobu hotel, with a £225 food and mini-bar tab.
A preliminary hearing is set to begin at the Royal Courts of Justice on Monday morning where Mrs Vardy will outline her skeleton argument.
Mrs Rooney’s legal team will also challenge parts of an “unreasonable” bill of about £325,000 arising from Mrs Vardy’s pre-trial costs, of which 20 per cent will have to be paid.
A source close to Mrs Vardy told the newspaper: “As far as Becky is concerned, they have been trying to pick her pockets because they think they can get away with it.
“They underestimated their costs and are over-billing her. From the costs of experts to legal fees, the figures are ludicrous.
“Becky won’t stand for it. She will keep fighting in court until she feels there is a fair outcome.”
Specialist costs judges assess the costs and expenses incurred during a civil case and rule on how much successful parties can recover, and can reduce the costs if needed or if they are deemed to be unreasonable.
Mrs Rooney’s viral social media post in October 2019 is at the heart of the libel claim.
She claimed to have carried out a months-long “sting operation” and accused Mrs Vardy of leaking information to the press.
Mrs Rooney’s detective work was dubbed “Wagatha Christie”, a combination of the term “WAG” – an acronym for the wives and girlfriends of footballers – and the name of Agatha Christie, the writer of whodunit crime fiction.
Mrs Rooney publicly said Mrs Vardy’s Instagram account was the source behind three stories in The Sun newspaper featuring fake details she had posted on her private Instagram profile – featuring her travelling to Mexico for a “gender selection” procedure, her planning to return to TV, and the basement flooding at her home.
Following the high-profile trial, Mrs Justice Steyn ruled in Mrs Rooney’s favour, finding it was “likely” that Mrs Vardy’s agent Caroline Watt had leaked information to The Sun and that she “knew of and condoned this behaviour”.
The judge added that Mrs Vardy had “actively” engaged, “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”.
Paul Lunt, of Brabners solicitors, who represented Mrs Rooney, said in October 2022 that the court’s ruling reflected the fact Ms Vardy deliberately destroyed evidence. As a result her conduct fell “outside the ordinary and reasonable conduct expected of a party in legal proceedings”.
He said the loss of a phone containing potentially vital evidence over the side of a boat in the North Sea had driven up the final bill: “Coleen’s pursuit of that evidence is a major reason why her legal costs increased substantially from the original estimates given to the court long before the start of the trial.”
The final libel bill is more than three times higher than the £540,000 which mum-of-five Mrs Vardy had originally budgeted for.
Mrs Vardy and Mrs Rooney were approached by the Standard for comment.
