Coleen Rooney was sued for defamation by Rebekah Vardy after she publicly accused the latter of being behind the leaking her private information to the press.
Although Ms Rooney only accused “Rebekah Vardy’s account” of being the source of the stories in her infamous ‘Wagatha Christie’ reveal post, a judge ruled that Ms Rooney had to prove that Ms Vardy had a direct hand in the leaking of information.
In the subsequent High Court showdown between the celebrities, Ms Rooney emerged victorious - with Ms Justice Steyn ruling that Ms Vardy “knew of, condoned and actively engaged” in information being passed to The Sun.
Ms Justice Steyn said it was “likely” Ms Vardy’s agent at the time, Caroline Watt, “undertook the direct act” of passing the information to the tabloid.
Here are the most crucial pieces of evidence from the trial:
‘I want paying for this’
Rebekah Vardy tried to get paid by The Sun for a story tip about footballer Danny Drinkwater’s car crash in April 2019, the court heard.
Ms Vardy told her agent that she had a story about Mr Drinkwater getting arrested for drink-driving. “He’s only just been let out of the cells x. Last night! x. I want paying for this x,” she said in messages to Caroline Watt.
On finding out that The Sun already knew about it, Ms Vardy messaged: “F*** someone already tipped it... I’m fuming I didn’t give it to you earlier”.
Ms Watt replied that she felt the same, saying: “Me too that would have been a fortune :) :)”.
‘Go in the Instagram’
A key part of the trial centred around whether or not Rebekah Vardy directed her agent Caroline Watt to leak Ms Rooney’s private information to the press.
In one exchange between the pair, they discussed whether or not Ms Rooney had crashed her Honda car in America - a report of which later appeared in The Sun.
“Am I imagining this or did you say yesterday that Coleen had crashed her Honda? x,” Ms Watt asked Ms Vardy on Whatsapp.
“She defo has :) :) x. Go in the Instagram,” came Ms Vardy’s reply.
Later Ms Watts told Ms Vardy that “Halls”, meaning Sun reporter Andy Halls, “is trying to do a story on Coleen crashing her car but her PR won’t even reply”.
She continued: “I’ve told him I’m 100% confident that it happened but don’t know how.”
“Haha she defo did x,” Ms Vardy responded.
‘It was me’
In January 2019, Coleen Rooney publicly said that someone was leaking information from her private Instagram account, following the publication of a story in The Sun about a supposed car crash.
In a warning message posted to Twitter, Ms Rooney said: “Thank you for the messages asking if I am ok... the car crash story was completely wrong... I wasn’t involved in a crash... the car was damaged by another car. Someone on my private Instagram seen the picture and is telling or selling stories to a certain newspaper.”
She continued: “It’s happened several times now over the past couple of years. It’s sad to think someone, who I have accepted to follow me is betraying for either money or to keep a relationship with the press.”
Reacting to the message, Caroline Watt told Ms Vardy: “It wasn’t someone she trusted. It was me :) .”
‘Seen by 1’: Coleen Rooney’s Instagram sting
The fake stories posted by Ms Rooney on her private Instagram to “trap” Ms Vardy were revealed on the penultimate day of the trial.
One image showed the back of a plane seat, with the caption: “Let’s go and see what this gender selection is all about”.
That was a false story posted on 8 April 2019 about Ms Rooney travelling to Mexico to see about a procedure that could determine a baby’s sex. The story shows that only one Instagram user has seen the story - Ms Vardy’s account.
Around four months later, The Sun published a story online on 15 August 2019 with the headline “Col’s baby girl bid”. It detailed Ms Rooney’s alleged “desperate bid to have a baby girl”.
Another picture showed Ms Rooney “revealing” the basement of the Rooneys’ £20m Cheshire mansion had flooded.
The fake post showed a bottle of wine and was captioned: “Needed after today… flood in the basement of our new house… when it all seemed to be going so well.” The image, which was only seen by Ms Vardy’s account, led to an article in The Sun in October 2019.
Ms Vardy admits knowing agent passed information to The Sun
Whilst on the witness stand, Ms Vardy admitted that she knew her agent was forwarding Ms Rooney’s private information to The Sun.
Ms Vardy said under cross-examination that she “didn’t think [her agent] was passing on any new information” to the tabloid about Ms Rooney’s supposedly crashing her Honda. Ms Rooney’s lawyer David Sherborne challenged Ms Vardy, saying: “You didn’t object at any stage to the fact that Mrs Watt was plainly passing on information from Mrs Rooney’s private Instagram account to Andy Hall?”
Ms Vardy responded: “I didn’t think she was passing on any new information.”
“Take the word ‘new’ out of it,” Mr Sherborne said, “Did you, or did you not, know that Mrs Watt was passing on information from Mrs Rooney’s private account?”
“She was talking to Mr Halls about information that was already being discussed,” Ms Vardy conceeded.
‘Belief is not evidence’
During cross-examination, Rebekah Vardy’s lawyer Mr Tomlinson QC suggested to Ms Rooney that she had no evidence to link Ms Vardy to alleged leaks of fake private Instagram posts to the press.
He said: “You have no evidence to establish that it was Mrs Vardy who did the leaking.”
“I believe it’s come from that account and that’s what I have said from the beginning and I believe Mrs Vardy knew that this was happening,” Ms Rooney replied.
She repeated: “I believe that Mrs Vardy knew that this was happening, whether it was Mrs Vardy herself or it was someone she’s given permission to.”
Mr Tomlinson replied that “you might believe that Derby County will win the premiership”, adding: “It’s not evidence that they are going to.”
“No it’s not,” she replied.
Discussing the ‘Honda crash’ story that appeared in The Sun, Ms Rooney agreed with Mr Tomlinson that anybody who saw the damaged Honda would have known about it and that the story could have made its way to The Sun without someone seeing her private Instagram account.
Mr Tomlinson said: “This information could at any time have come to The Sun without anybody looking at your posts at all.”
“They could, yes,” she replied.
