Humiliation for Vardy as she admits: My PR may have been behind leaks
THE ‘Wagatha Christie’ case took a dramatic turn yesterday as it emerged Rebekah Vardy now ‘appears to accept’ her PR leaked stories about Coleen Rooney.
The wife of Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy is suing the wife of former England star Wayne Rooney over her dramatic public claim in 2019 that Mrs Vardy, 40, had been leaking false stories about her private life.
Mrs Rooney, 36, was nicknamed ‘Wagatha Christie’ after staging an elaborate sting operation in which she disclosed made-up personal titbits to a diminishing number of people to eventually, she believed, incriminate Mrs Vardy when they later appeared as news stories. Mrs Vardy launched her libel action fiercely denying she had been the source of stories in The Sun about Mrs R o o n e y, e i t h e r p e r s o n a l l y o r through her public relations agent Caroline Watt.
But yesterday, during a pre-trial hearing discussing legal matters prior to the start of the case next month, the Royal Courts of Justice was told by Mrs Rooney’s barrister that in a new witness statement Mrs Vardy had suddenly conceded that her own agent Caroline Watt may have been The Sun’s source.
David Sherborne said: ‘The collapse of Mrs Vardy’s case over the last day has been remarkable. As of the evening of 27 April, in an abrupt change of position to her case, Mrs
Vardy appears now to accept Mrs Rooney’s case – that Caroline Watt, Mrs Vardy’s close friend and PR, was the conduit by which stories from the defendant’s private Instagram account were leaked to The Sun, through her access via Rebekah Vardy’s account. It is only now, on the eve of trial, that Mrs Vardy has been forced to come clean.’ He added that while Mrs Vardy now suggests Miss Watt may have been the source of the leaks, she maintains she ‘did not authorise or condone her’.
But the barrister continued: ‘It has become undeniably obvious that Miss Watt is the source – and Mrs Vardy, true to form, says “It wasn’t me, I didn’t realise and I didn’t know anything about what was going on”.
‘But Mrs Vardy was complicit in Miss Watt’s activities. Complicit in the sharing of private information with Miss Watt, complicit in it being passed to The Sun.
‘Mrs Vardy has condoned, authorised, approved and directed such disclosures by Miss Watt.’
Mr Sherborne claimed Mrs Vardy had been driven to her admission by Mrs Rooney’s formal request for The Sun to hand over documents detailing communications between Mrs Vardy, Miss Watt, and one of its star reporters. The
Sun has resisted an order to hand over the material, arguing any sources have a right to confidentiality. But Mr Sherborne claimed yesterday that if the documents were revealed, they would ‘undoubtedly identify Miss Watt as the conduit’.
He said Mrs Vardy had previously insisted Sun journalists ‘would say neither she nor Miss Watt were the sources of the stories’.
Mrs Vardy’s barrister, Hugh Tomlinson QC, told the court however that his client’s latest witness statement did not involve ‘any change whatever’ in her libel claim against Mrs Rooney.
Mr Tomlinson said: ‘Mr Sherborne may think that this is an evil conspiracy to deceive his client and the court. We simply don’t know what the true position is in relation to Miss Watt. She’s not communicating with anybody. We don’t know what her position is.’
Last night, in a victory for Press freedom, the judge cancelled summons ordering three Sun journalists to court to be quizzed about their sources.
Their barrister said it would have had a ‘chilling’ effect across the media, deterring other sources from speaking out.
The case continues.
‘Complicit in her activities’