Rebecca Vardy has lost her “Wagatha Christie” defamation trial against Colin Rooney over a social media post.
Vardy is the wife of the Leicester City striker Jimmy VardyRooney, the wife of England’s top scorer, Wayne Rooney, has taken to court after she was accused of providing the media with private information about Colin Rooney. This came after Ronnie carried out a detailed stinging operation to find out who was relaying stories about her private life.
Judge Karen Stein said in a written ruling on Friday that Rooney’s claim was “largely true”.
Stein said it was possible that Vardy’s agent, Caroline Watt, had passed on private information to The Sun and that “Ms. Vardy was aware of this behavior and condoned it”.
The trial was named Wagatha Christie after the term used by the British media to refer to the wives and girlfriends of footballers – WAGs – and Agatha Christie, the famous writer of detective novels.
Rooney said she posted a series of fake stories about herself on Instagram with the aim of finding out who was leaking information about her, and prevented everyone but one on her account from seeing the posts.
And when the stories appeared in the press, Rooney published a message about the source of the leak in October 2019 declaring: “It’s……… the account of Rebecca Vardy.”
Her lawyer, Hugh Tomlinson, said Vardy has vehemently denied leaking the information, and has sued for defamation “to prove her innocence and defend her reputation.”
He said Vardy had suffered “widespread hostility and abuse” after Rooney accused her in a post to her nearly two million social media followers.
The case sparked a media frenzy during seven days of hearings as the two women went to court with their husbands, despite urging judges and legal experts to settle.
The case reportedly cost each side more than £1m in legal fees.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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