Wayne had done wrong .. we didn’t know if we would last
»»Coleen reveals she and husband split up after Laura »»Court told of Vardy & Sarah Harding spat over handbag snaps
COLEEN Rooney told how she feared her marriage was over after husband wayne was caught drink-driving with Laura simpson in 2017.
The 36-year-old revealed for the first time the couple had split following the incident and she was unsure how to resolve the situation.
On the fourth day of her £3million Wagatha Christie court libel battle with Rebekah Vardy, Rooney yesterday revealed her fears in the aftermath of the incident with ex-office worker Laura.
She told the court: “I was in a vulnerable situation. There had been some wrongdoing by my husband. I was spending a lot of time at my parents’ house. I didn’t know how my marriage was going to work out.
“Me and Wayne were trying to figure out our relationship and where we were going. But I didn’t want the public to know that. I hadn’t settled on, ‘This is it, we are getting back together.’”
She discussed the 2017 “the pyjama post”, a social media image of her and three of her children wearing matching polka dot nightwear in the family bed.
On her private account, however, she shared an additional image showing Wayne and the kids in the bed playing games at Halloween.
A story then subsequently appeared about Rooney being “back at home” and the pair being reunited.
Rooney also spoke about a story that leaked while she was in America, claiming she had been involved in a car crash in January 2019.
She said it caused her further anguish as people started messaging her to see if she was OK but it had only been a minor scrape. She added: “I’m not used to driving on that side of the road.
“There was no crash. It gave me the anger to put it out into the public. I was annoyed. I was fuming.’’
The High Court heard how Vardy got into a fight with Sarah Harding at the 2018 National Television Awards after the Girls Aloud singer spotted Vardy snapping her handbag.
Rooney said in a witness statement: “Sarah apparently caught Becky taking photographs of the contents of Sarah’s handbag when Sarah had dropped it on the floor. Their dispute subsequently appeared in The Sun.”
Rooney told how she became upset after details of her family affairs were allegedly leaked to The Sun. She said she suspected Vardy was leaking stories
I took the view that enough warnings had been given. I went public COLEEN ROONEY ON NAMING VARDY OVER PRESS LEAKS
about her so, as a “last resort”, she decided to instigate a “sting operation” in a bid to confirm it. In her statement she added: “For the avoidance of any doubt, I did not mention this plan or the content of the sting operation to anyone.
“Nobody knew the detail of what was going on apart from me. It killed me not telling anyone about it but I managed it.
“Nobody had ever contacted me in advance of leaking my posts and stories to The Sun to ask if I was OK with it. On
the contrary, I made it abundantly clear that I was unhappy about the leaks and they continued regardless.
“I took the view that enough warning had been given and decided to go public. I had never spoken to Becky on the phone before, or met up just the two of us, so we didn’t really have that direct kind of relationship.
“I knew she had a close relationship with the media so I thought if I confronted her privately then she would probably just try to explain it away or pretend to be my friend and supportive, as she had done before, and then spin the narrative publicly.” Rooney finally accused Vardy of leaking the stories in a social media post in October 2019.
She claims she offered Vardy, who is married to Leicester City striker Jamie, three olive branches to end their legal battle.
Rooney said: “I have sought to resolve this matter amicably on various occasions because I was of the view that the time, money, resources and efforts involved could be better spent elsewhere.
“However, the efforts I made were all in vain. I should add that my concerns went beyond my own posts. I knew I could not be the only one whose trust was being abused by the culprit and I now know from having seen WhatsApp exchanges that Becky was leaking information about a whole range of other people.
“When I uploaded the post in October 2019, I believed it was in the public interest for me to make that statement. I still do now.
“It was wrong for Becky to leak stories about me and about other people for the whole world to read it
in the newspaper. There have been no leaks of posts from my account since. No doubt similar behaviour by Becky was also a real worry for many others too. I am glad I have put an end to it.”
Rooney was then quizzed by Vardy’s barrister Hugh Tomlinson QC. Asked what she set out to achieve with the post, she replied: “What I wanted was to stop the person who was leaking my private information. This was my last resort.”
Mr Tomlinson suggested she must have known the social media post would have led to abuse of Vardy, to which she replied: “No, that was not my intention at all, not at all. It’s not in my nature to.”
Vardy had told the court she felt “bullied and manipulated” while cross-examined in the witness box.
When Vardy, 40, was asked by Mr Tomlinson about how she had found giving evidence, she replied: “Exhausting, intimidating.”
Vardy denies leaking stories and is suing for libel. Rooney is defending the claim on the basis her post was “substantially true”.
The trial in London continues.