Vardy could settle if she loses key ‘Wagatha’ battle this week
REBEKAH VARDY and her former manager are expected to ask a judge this week not to force them to hand over their correspondence as the so-called ‘Wagatha Christie’ libel battle continues.
Coleen Rooney wants Mrs Vardy and her long-serving aide Caroline Watt to disclose details of their private communications.
The women are two of the highest-profile WAGs, as the wives and girlfriends of top-flight footballers are known.
Sources say part of a two-day hearing will focus on whether that request is granted and whether Instagram should be asked to release some of its records.
It is understood that, after seven years, Mrs Watt no longer represents Mrs Vardy and she has hired her own legal team to appear for her at the High Court on Tuesday.
Insiders say Mrs Vardy, who had insisted she would fight to clear her name after being accused by Mrs Rooney of helping to leak stories to The Sun newspaper, is now mulling the possibility of seeking a settlement. A source said: ‘Becky has been confident about winning, but if the judgment on the correspondence goes Coleen’s way, things could change. The importance of the hearing should absolutely not be underestimated.’
Mrs Watt is a respondent in the case. Mrs Vardy, 39 – the wife of England footballer Jamie Vardy, 35 – has hired former News of the World journalist Ian Edmondson to do her public relations.
Mrs Rooney, 35, the wife of former England striker Wayne, claimed on social media in October 2019 that information from her private Instagram account had been leaked to The Sun.
Using sleuthing skills that earned her the nickname ‘Wagatha Christie’, she claimed to have blocked all but one of her followers from seeing her Instagram account and posted fake stories that subsequently appeared in the tabloid.
She then announced that the leak had come from the account of Mrs Vardy, who denied the claim and sued Mrs Rooney for libel.