The high-profile Wagatha Christie case has returned to court, with Coleen Rooney accusing Rebekah Vardy of running up a ‘unreasonable’ £325,000 legal bill. Mrs Vardy, 42, lost her £3 million libel case against Mrs Rooney, 38, in a stunning decision in July 2022. In an order dated October of that year, the judge determined that Mrs Vardy, the wife of footballer Jamie Vardy, should pay 90% of Mrs Rooney’s expenses, with an initial £800,000 ordered to be paid.
The matter returned to court today, some two years after the original hearing, as Mrs Rooney challenges portions of Mrs Vardy’s £325,000 cost, of which she would be responsible for 20%. Mrs Vardy was left with a massive legal expenditure and a tarnished image after a High Court judge dismissed her evidence in the previous trial as ‘evasive or improbable’ and accused her of purposefully deleting key WhatsApp exchanges in the case.
Mrs Vardy had sued over allegations that she had disclosed facts about Mrs Rooney’s private life to the press. Mrs Rooney devised an intricate sting operation to find out who was telling The Sun about her private life. The court case was really tough. Mrs Vardy’s main barrister ended up working on Christmas Day.
The trial was documented on Disney+ and then adapted into a Channel 4 drama starring Michael Sheen as Mrs. Rooney’s barrister, David Sherborne. Mrs Rooney’s costs are scheduled to be heard in October, and neither woman attended in the High Court today for the initial hearing. Mrs Rooney’s lawyer, Robin Dunne, said that Mrs Vardy’s team had incurred ‘unreasonable and disproportionate’ expenditures prior to the trial. Some of the fees were related to bids made at a February 2022 hearing for additional papers and material from both sides, as well as Mrs Rooney’s request that legal action against Mrs Vardy’s former agency be heard alongside the libel claim.
Mrs Rooney’s attorneys previously claimed that Mrs Vardy provided material to The Sun either directly or through her agent Caroline Watt, ‘acting on her instruction or with her knowing knowledge’.
Mrs Rooney had already paid Ms Watt’s £65,000 legal fee, so her bid was dismissed. Mr Dunne stated that these were’significant applications’ and that “we fully accept there needed to be work done,” but that Mrs Vardy’s cost for around eight weeks of work was ‘disproportionate’.
Mrs Vardy’s lawyers are resisting the attempt to lessen the expenses bill. Mrs Vardy’s lawyer, Jamie Carpenter KC, stated that there was ‘barely a day’ when her lawyers were not working. Mrs Vardy’s trial barrister, Hugh Tomlinson KC, ‘worked on the case on Christmas Day when he was on holiday’, according to the specialist expenses court in London. Mr Carpenter stated that many of the lawyers worked on Mrs Vardy’s case on Boxing Day and during the Christmas bank holidays.
He went on to say, “No one was building costs.” ‘This was work that absolutely needed to be done, and it was a lot of labor. The hearing before Senior Costs Judge Andrew Gordon-Saker is scheduled to finish on Wednesday. Mrs Rooney claimed in a viral social media post in October 2019 that she had conducted a months-long’sting operation’ and accused Mrs Vardy of exposing confidential material to the press.
Mrs Rooney publicly claimed Mrs Vardy’s account was the source of three stories in The Sun newspaper that featured fake details she had posted on her private Instagram profile, including her trip to Mexico for a ‘gender selection’ procedure, her plans to return to TV, and the basement flooding at her home. Following the high-profile trial, Mrs Justice Steyn decided in Mrs Rooney’s favor, finding it ‘probable’ that Ms Watt had supplied information to The Sun and that she ‘knew of and condoned this activity’.
Mrs Vardy had ‘actively’ engaged, according to the judge, leading Ms Watt to the secret Instagram account, sending her copies of Mrs Rooney’s posts, paying attention to issues of potential interest to the press, and responding to additional press requests via Ms Watt.
