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Rebekah Vardy destroyed incriminating evidence in the “Wagatha Christie” case and lied about it under oath, the High Court was told as the libel trial reached its final day.
Both Mrs Vardy and her footballer husband, Jamie, were strongly criticised by Coleen Rooney’s lawyers over the way they had conducted themselves during the trial.
Mrs Vardy is suing Mrs Rooney over the allegation that she leaked the latter’s private Instagram stories to The Sun.
While Mrs Vardy brought the action, the case has been bruising for her reputation. At the hearing’s end, she broke down in tears and had to be consoled by her solicitor.
The Rooneys, who left court with beaming smiles on Tuesday after completing their evidence, were not present for the closing speeches. They sent their apologies to the judge via their barrister, who explained that they are on holiday.
Mr Vardy, the Leicester City striker, gave a statement outside court on Wednesday denouncing the evidence of Wayne Rooney, his former England teammate. Mr Rooney claimed that Mrs Vardy’s media activities during Euro 2016 were upsetting the FA, and he had told Mr Vardy to relay that to his wife.
David Sherborne, representing Mrs Rooney, said: “It is not lost on the court that while he gave a press statement when not under oath, Mr Vardy was apparently unwilling to give one for the purposes of these proceedings.”
He suggested that Mr Vardy “didn’t want his evidence to be tested in the same way Mr Rooney’s was”.
Mr Sherborne described Mrs Vardy as “an entirely unreliable witness” who had made a concerted effort to destroy “incriminating” evidence in the case. Her “deliberate trail of destruction” included a string of WhatsApp messages to Caroline Watt, her agent, regarding Mrs Rooney.
“The only conclusion the court can reach is that Mrs Vardy deleted the chat and then lied under oath about it,” Mr Sherborne said.
From Instagram to the High Court
The case burst into the public eye in 2019 when Mrs Rooney announced on social media that she had posted fake Instagram stories in a sting operation to identify which of her followers had been leaking information.
She restricted access to only one follower and wrote in her “reveal” post: “It’s… Rebekah Vardy’s account.”
Miss Watt had access to Mrs Vardy’s account. Mrs Rooney’s lawyers argue that if Miss Watt leaked the messages, it was with Mrs Vardy’s encouragement or approval.
Some of the WhatsApp messages did survive, including one in which Mrs Vardy and Miss Watt discussed Mrs Rooney’s fears that she had been betrayed by someone she trusted, and Miss Watt said: “It wasn’t someone she trusted. It was me.”
That evidence, Mr Sherborne said, “is there in black and white”.
In another message, Mrs Vardy asked Miss Watt: “Can we not leak a story?” Mr Sherborne mocked the explanation which Mrs Vardy gave in court, which was that “although that is what she wrote, she in fact meant something completely different”.
He told the court that Mrs Vardy’s case had “almost entirely disintegrated” over the course of the proceedings.
“In many respects, this trial has been extraordinary,” he said.
“Extraordinary because of the tenacity of the claimant in backtracking on her admissions of leaks. Extraordinary because of the documentary evidence that flatly contradicts the claimant's account, as well as the extent to which it plainly demonstrates her consistent practice of secretly leaking information to the press.
“Extraordinary because of the absence of the central figure, Caroline Watt.” Hearing evidence from Mrs Vardy without evidence from Miss Watt, he said, was akin to “Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark”.
Miss Watt is too unwell to give evidence and was unable to hand over her WhatsApp messages because her mobile phone fell into the North Sea during a boat trip in Scotland.
Hugh Tomlinson QC, Mrs Vardy’s barrister, said that his client “does not know to this day” who leaked the stories, but accepted that “the obvious suspect is Caroline Watt”.
However, Mr Tomlinson said that the case against Mrs Vardy “only works if she was proven to know about it. The case points the other way.”
He said: “Mrs Vardy has obviously made mistakes. The most serious may have been to trust Miss Watt, her agent.”
Mr Tomlinson said another of Mrs Vardy's mistakes was to make remarks on WhatsApp which "she would obviously not have said" had she known they would be made public. They include referring to Mrs Rooney as a “c---”.
But he said that Mrs Rooney had no evidence against Mrs Vardy, and had been unreasonable to fire off an accusation with a “whodunnit tone”.
“As a result of the untrue defamatory allegation, Mrs Vardy has suffered very serious harm to her reputation and huge distress and upset.
“She has been subjected to entirely foreseeable public abuse and ridicule on a massive scale. As a result, she is entitled to substantial damages for libel,” Mr Tomlinson said.
Mrs Justice Steyn, the judge, reserved her ruling until a later date. Mr Sherborne spoke for many when he said, in his closing submission: “Anyone could be forgiven for wondering how on earth this case has been allowed to get this far.”
Read our full-time report on the case here.
