Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
REBEKAH...1 COLEEN.....0
First victory in libel fight goes to Jamie’s missus
REBEKAH Vardy has won the first round of her libel battle with Coleen Rooney.
A judge ruled Coleen had “clearly identified” her fellow wag when she accused her of leaking stories from her personal Instagram account.
He also ordered her to pay Rebekah’s legal costs of £23,000 for the preliminary hearing.
The “Wagatha Christie” row broke last October when Coleen, 34, said she had tricked Vardy’s Instagram account by posting fake stories which later appeared in The Sun.
In July, Rebekah, wife of Leicester City star Jamie, filed for defamation.
The initial argument, which Rebekah yesterday won, was over the wording of Coleen’s accusation to two million social media fans.
After the false stories were published , Coleen , wife of f ormer England star Wayne, wrote on Instagram and Twitter: “I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person has viewed them. It’s......rebekah Vardy’s account.”
The wording meant her lawyers could argue she was not accusing Rebekah directly but implicating anyone with access to her Instagram account. But Judge Mark Warby yesterday ruled against this, saying the post looked like it put the blame solely on the 38-year-old model.
TRUSTED
He added the “natural and ordinary” meaning of Coleen’s posts was that Rebekah had “regularly and frequently abused her status as a trusted follower of Ms Rooney ’s personal Instagram account by secretly informing The Sun newspaper of her private posts and stories”.
Rebekah’s barrister Hugh Tomlinson QC said Coleen’s posts were “untrue and unjustified” and “published and republished to millions of people”.
He added: “In fact, she did nothing wrong. Whatever leaks there were did not come from her.”
David Sherborne, for Coleen, who d eni es any wrongdoing, sai d Rebekah was “responsible for consistently passing on information about her private Instagram posts and stories to The Sun”.
He said: “Mrs Rooney intends to defend these words as true i n whatever meaning.”
The court heard the pair had agreed to delay further proceedings until February in “a final attempt to solve the matter without a full trial”.
If mediation is unsuccessful, the case will begin next summer and last around five days.
Neither Rebekah, rehearsing for Dancing on Ice in Nottingham, nor Coleen were at the London hearing.
Coleen’s post looked like it put the blame solely on Rebekah JUDGE MARK WELBY IN HIGH COURT YESTERDAY