Sting was a last resort, says Rooney
Coleen Rooney is glad she “put an end” to Rebekah Vardy allegedly leaking other people’s information after her bid to catch the person “betraying” her “red-handed”, the High Court was told in the women’s libel battle.
In a viral social media post in October 2019, Mrs Rooney, 36, said she had carried out a “sting operation” and accused Mrs Vardy, 40, of leaking “false stories” about her private life to the press.
Mrs Vardy, who is married to Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, denies leaking stories to the media and is suing her fellow footballer’s wife for libel, while Mrs Rooney is defending the claim on the basis her post was “substantially true”.
On Friday afternoon, Mrs Rooney began giving evidence in Court 13 of the Royal Courts of Justice, facing questions from Mrs Vardy’s barrister
Hugh Tomlinson QC.
Asked what she set out to achieve with the widely shared post, Mrs Rooney replied: “I wasn’t achieving anything, what I wanted was to stop the person who was leaking my private information to The Sun.”
Mrs Rooney added that she had given out warnings “many times”, but “it didn’t stop”.
“This was my last resort,” she continued. In a witness statement, she outlined her “growing sense of suspicion” that Mrs Vardy’s account might be linked to alleged leaks.
She explained she made two warning posts on social media and temporarily removed Rebekah Vardy from her account “but nothing had worked”.
Mrs Rooney added that she “wanted to catch the account responsible ‘red-handed’ as it were and so I came up with a plan”, before outlining her socalled “sting operation” of positing fake stories and limiting
access to them to Mrs Vardy’s Instagram account.
In court on Friday, Mr Tomlinson suggested Mrs Rooney had “no evidence” to establish that Mrs Vardy leaked information from her personal
Instagram account.
“I believe that Mrs Vardy knew that this was happening, whether it was Mrs Vardy herself or it was someone she’s given permission to,” Mrs Rooney said.
Mr Tomlinson replied that “you might believe that Derby County will win the premiership”, adding: “It’s not evidence that they are going to.”