Rebekah Vardy has posted a cryptic Instagram story after it was revealed today that she will have to pay up to £1.5m of Coleen Rooney’s legal bills in the Wagatha Christie trial.
The 40-year-old wife of Leicester City star Jamie Vardy shared an image with her 406,000 followers that read: “It’s always the ones with the dirty hands pointing the fingers.”
It was not clear who or what the post refers to.
Just hours before, it emerged that Ms Vardy faces a legal bill of around £3.7 million after she was ordered to pay most of Ms Rooney’s costs following their High Court defamation battle.
Ms Vardy had sued Ms Rooney for libel after being publicly accused of leaking stories about her to The Sun.
In July, Judge Karen Steyn ruled that Ms Rooney, 36, had proved her allegation was “substantially true” and that Ms Vardy, 40, knew and condoned private details being leaked to The Sun by her agent.
On Tuesday, Ms Vardy, who said the judge had got it wrong, was ordered to pay 90 per cent of Ms Rooney’s legal costs of about £1.67m, with £800,000 to be paid by the middle of November.
The case has drawn in the public and media with its mix of glamour, soccer, and amateur sleuthing with Ms Rooney turning detective to track down the culprit behind the leaks.
She said she had blocked everyone from viewing her Instagram account except one person and then posted a series of false stories to see whether they leaked out, which they did.
“It’s ... Rebekah Vardy‘s account,” she posted on social media, which saw Ms Rooney dubbed “Wagatha Christie”, a reference to the “WAG” moniker given to the glamorous group of footballers’ “wives and girlfriends”.
During the trial, the court was shown message exchanges between Ms Vardy and her agent Caroline Watt, which included derogatory remarks about Ms Rooney and talk of leaking stories.
Ms Rooney’s lawyer said Ms Vardy deleted other media files and messages, while the agent’s phone ended up at the bottom of the North Sea after she said she accidentally dropped it over the side of a boat.
“In my judgment, what takes this case out of the norm in a way which compels the conclusion that I should make an order for indemnity costs is that in my judgment following the trial I found that the claimant [and also her former agent] had deliberately deleted or destroyed evidence,” Steyn said.
Additional reporting from the Press Association.
