Judge to rule on Rooney and Vardy ‘Wag Wars’ case in bid to avoid trial
Coleen Rooney "pointed the finger" at Rebekah Vardy as "the villa in" who allegedly leaked stories about her private life to the media, the High Court has heard.
Mrs Rooney, 34, was dubbed "Wagatha Christie" on social media for her apparent sleuthing work, having" posted a series of false stories to see if they made their way into The Sun" as part of a "sting operation".
The wife of former England star Wayne Rooney claimed last October that fellow footballer's wife Mrs Vardy, 38, shared the fake stories she had posted on her personal Instagram account.
Mrs Vardy, who is married to Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, denies the accusations and is suing Mrs Rooney for damages for libel.
At the first hearing of their legal battle yesterday, Mrs Vardy's lawyers argued the meaning of Mrs Rooney's posts was that she had "consistently and repeatedly betrayed the defendant's trust over several years by leaking the defendant's private and personal Instagram posts and stories for publication in The Sun".
But Mrs Rooney's legal team said the posts mean "there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the claimant was responsible for consistently passing on information about the defendant's private Instagram posts and stories to The Sun newspaper".
Mrs Vardy's barrister Hugh Tomlinson QC said: "The fact that both women are married to professional footballers has led to this action being trivialised in some media coverage as 'Wag wars', but the impact on Mrs Vardy was not trivial."
He told the court Mrs Rooney' s posts were an" untrue and unjustified defamatory attack" which was "published and republished to millions of people".
The barrister also said the parties had agreed for a "stay" of the proceedings until February, so there could be "one final attempt to resolve the matter without the need for a full trial".
David Sherborne, representing Mrs Rooney, told the court "Mrs Rooney intends to defend these words as true in whatever meaning."
Mr Justice Warby said he would give his ruling this afternoon.
In her written claim previously filed with the court, Mrs Vardy said she had worried she would lose her baby because of the stress as she was pregnant at the time.