Rebekah Vardy news – live: Coleen Rooney says marriage story hit at ‘vulnerable time’
Follow live on fourth day of trial
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Coleen Rooney has told the High Court she was in a “vulnerable position” when a story about her marriage to Wayne Rooney - that she believes was leaked from her private Instagram - hit the press.
She discussed a story in The Sun about the former England captain being allowed back into the family bed as she took the stand in her libel trial against fellow footballer’s wife Rebekah Vardy.
Ms Rooney also told the court her post naming-and-shaming Ms Vardy’s account as the suspected source of leaks to the press was her “last resort”.
The 36-year-old said she did not tell anyone about the ”sting” operation - which earned her the nickname “Wagatha Christie” when revealed to her followers - to try and work out who was behind the leaks.
Earlier in the morning, Ms Vardy revealed to the court she messaged Peter Andre and his wife about her now-infamous News of the World interview, in which she compared his private anatomy to a “chipolata”.
Ms Rooney is being sued by the wife of Premier League player Jamie Vardy for libel over the story leak accusations.
Recap: Vardy tells court she felt ‘bullied and manipulated’ on witness stand in libel trial
Rebekah Vardy has told the High Court she felt “bullied and intimidated” as a witness in the libel trial against fellow footballer’s wife Coleen Rooney.
The 40-year-old finished giving evidence on Friday, four days after she first took the stand in the case which centres around Ms Vardy being accused of leaking information about Ms Rooney’s private life to the press.
Speaking in a wobbling voice at the end of her witness testimony, Ms Vardy said: “I didn’t do anything wrong and I wanted to clear my name, and I wanted it not just for me but for my family and my children.”
Read the full story here:
Rebekah Vardy tells court she felt ‘bullied and manipulated’ on stand in libel trial
‘I wanted to clear my name,’ 40-year-old tells court
Rebekah Vardy is smiling as Coleen Rooney tells the court that she was told Ms Vardy moved to sit behind her at a Euro 2016 match to get more attention.
Ms Rooney said she was told during the Euros that Ms Vardy had sat behind her to get better press photos. At the time Ms Rooney thought “that it was a load of nonsense”, she told the court. “I didn’t take it on board.”
However she said that during a 2018 England game, Wayne Rooney’s last for England, she asked Ms Robinson, an FA liason officer, how the Russia world cup was.
Ms Robinson replied: “It was ok. We miss you lot. But it was hard work with Rebekah Vardy,” Ms Rooney told the court.
This prompted Ms Rooney to ask Ms Robinson whether the story about the Euros seats was true, to which Ms Robinson responded that it was, Ms Rooney told the court.
Ms Vardy was grinning and consulting with lawyers as Ms Rooney testified.
Rebekah Vardy’s lawyer Mr Tomlinson QC suggested to Ms Rooney that she had no evidence to link Ms Vardy to alleged leaks of a fake private Instagram post to newspapers.
He said: “You have no evidence to establish that it was Mrs Vardy who did the leaking.”
“I believe it’s come from that account and that’s what I have said from the beginning and I believe Mrs Vardy knew that this was happening,” Ms Rooney replied.
Ms Rooney later said that “me and Rebekah have totally different ways of working” when it comes to dealing with PRs.
“Obviously Rebekah is friendly with Caroline Watt,” Ms Rooney said. “That is totally different to the relationships I have with people that I work with.”
Coleen Rooney says she kept her ‘Wagatha Christie’ sting totally secret
Coleen Rooney wanted to catch the account responsible for leaking her information “red-handed”, she told the court in her written evidence.
In her witness statement, Ms Rooney said she had made two warning posts and temporarily removed Rebekah Vardy from her account “but nothing had worked”.
She continued: “I wanted to catch the account responsible ‘red-handed’ as it were and so I came up with a plan.”
Describing her plan, Ms Rooney said: “I decided that I would invent and fabricate a story, limit accessibility in such a way so that it was only Becky’s Instagram account that could view it, upload it to Instagram via Instagram Stories for a period of 24 hours so that it was only ‘Seen By’ Becky’s Instagram account and then I would wait and see whether my fabricated/invented story, which had only been seen by Becky’s Instagram account, appeared in The Sun.”
She added: “For the avoidance of any doubt, I did not mention this plan or the content of the Sting Operation to anyone or discuss it with any person at any time.
“Nobody knew the detail of what was going on apart from me. It killed me not telling anyone about it but I managed it.”
Recap: Rebekah Vardy says she apologised to Peter Andre for chipolata claim
Rebekah Vardy has told the High Court she apologised to Peter Andre for an interview in which she discussed the size of his manhood and compared it to a chipolata.
The 40-year-old returned to the witness stand on the fourth day of her libel trial against Coleen Rooney over allegations she was leaking information to the press about her fellow footballer’s wife.
On Tuesday, shortly after being asked if she respected the privacy of others, Ms Vardy was questioned about a 2004 interview that carried the headline: “Peter’s hung like a small chipolata, shaved, slobbery, lasts five minutes.”
Read the full story here:
‘One of my biggest regrets’ - Vardy apologised to Peter Andre for chipolata claim
Model tells court interview is ‘one of biggest regrets’ on fourth day of trial
Before the break, Coleen Rooney opened up about her 2017 marriage troubles with Wayne.
“My relationship with my husband, there had been a situation. It was wrongdoing by my husband. I was in a vulnerable position,” Ms Rooney said.
She added: “I didn’t know how my marriage was going to work out, whether I was going on with my relationship. We needed to try and work things out.”
She was talking about this in relation to a Sun story about Wayne being allowed back in the family bed, which Ms Rooney was believes was leaked from her private Instagram.
She also opened up about her time in Washington DC. She said that while she was living there “I cried every single night. I couldn’t even facetime my parents.”
Court back in session
While Coleen Rooney has been testifying in court, her written witness statement has been diclosed. Here are some more details from it:
Coleen Rooney said a message between Rebekah Vardy and her agent referencing her deceased sister “knocked me sick” when it was disclosed.
Ms Rooney wrote in her witness statement: “While they were discussing her messaging me in order to cover her tracks, Becky says to Caroline Watt ‘maybe I should say something about Rosie’.
“Rosie is a reference to my sister who suffered with Rett Syndrome and passed away in 2013 at the age of just 14.
“The mere fact that Becky would suggest seeking to use Rosie’s name in conversation with me in order to put me off the scent of suspecting Becky as the person responsible for leaking my private information to The Sun is really low and sad.
“It actually knocked me sick when I read that message from Becky to Caroline.”
Rooney ‘always been confident in the truth’ of Wagatha Christie post
Coleen Rooney said she has “always been confident in the truth” of her viral post accusing Rebekah Vardy of leaking her private information to The Sun newspaper.
She wrote in her witness statement: “I have always been confident in the truth of what I posted on October 9 2019 and the documentation which Becky has disclosed as part of these proceedings, in particular her WhatsApp conversations with her agent Caroline Watt, has only further reinforced my view on that.”
Ms Rooney continued: “Friends and family are the most important to me and it was messing with my head that someone who I trusted was doing this to me.
“It annoyed and hurt me.
“It even messed with my friends and family because they felt like I suspected them of being responsible.”
Coleen Rooney said she has “always been confident in the truth” of her viral post accusing Rebekah Vardy of leaking her private information to The Sun newspaper.
Court rises for lunch
Coleen Rooney will resume giving evidence after the break
Ms Vardy would ‘regularly message Ms Rooney for information’, Ms Rooney said
Coleen Rooney said it was “a regular occurrence” that she would be messaged by Rebekah Vardy when there was press coverage about Ms Rooney. Mrs Vardy was “not in my circle”, Ms Rooney told the High Court.
“I felt like when she contacted me it was to try and get information out of me,” she added.
Ms Vardy’s messages to her came “when something not nice was going on in my personal life”, Ms Rooney claimed.
She said Ms Vardy’s messages were “generally nice”, but added that “towards the end its was a bit unusual”.
“Someone who was not that close to me... constantly checking in with me all the time,” Ms Rooney said
Referring to discussion about the story leaks read out in court, Ms Rooney has said that “it looks like Mrs Vardy knew a lot about what was going on.”
She told the court: “I felt like when she contacted me it was always to try and get information out of me.”
“She used to say are you ok? At the beginning I thought it was genuinely nice... It was a regular occurrence that when things wasn’t the best, Mrs Vardy would message me,” she said.
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