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Rebekah Vardy’s agent has apparently admitted leaking information about Coleen Rooney’s “car accident” to journalists, a court has heard.
During VardyOn his third day on the stand in the closely watched “Wagatha Christie” defamation trial, the jury heard an article about it being published in The Sun newspaper Rooney Her Honda crashed.
Text messages between Vardy and her agent, Caroline Watt, showed that Ms Watt appeared to admit to divulging the information.
in one viral social media post in 2019Rooney accused Vardy of leaking “false stories” about her to the media.
Vardy, the wife of Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, is now bringing a defamation lawsuit against her fellow WAG, the wife of former England player Wayne Rooney.
The High Court hearing had to be adjourned twice on Thursday after Vardy was upset.
Rooney’s attorney, David Sherborne, questioned Vardy and brought up an article in The Sun in early 2019 about Rooney’s car accident.
Rooney had posted a photo of the damaged Honda on her personal Instagram account three days earlier.
Mr Sherborne read texts between Vardy and Ms Watt, in which the TV personality’s agent said: “I would have tried to do a story on Coleen but the evidence was erased.”
She continued, “Halls tries to write a story about Coleen’s car accident but her PR doesn’t even respond. I told him I was 100% convinced it happened, but I don’t know how.”
“Halls” appeared to refer to Sun journalist Andy Hall, the court heard.
Rooney later said she did not actually crash the car, but that another car hit her car, the court heard.
Further key data from Thursday:
- Vardy is accused of suggesting telling Rooney about the anniversary of her sister’s death as a “follower” in order to contact her
- Prosecutors accused Vardy of having “selective amnesia” over deleted messages
- They also say Vardy’s agent “stopped cooperating a while ago” regarding access to their devices
‘It wasn’t anyone she trusted. It was me’
When asked by Rooney’s attorney, Vardy said she doesn’t think her agent is “releasing new information.”
Rooney later posted a tweet saying it was “sad” that someone who was following her “betrayed” her.
In a private WhatsApp conversation, Ms Watt discussed the tweet with Vardy, writing, “It wasn’t someone she trusted. It was me” with a laughing emoji.
Mr Sherborne asked Vardy if this appeared to show that Ms Watt admitted leaking information to the journalist.
She replied: “That seems to be what she’s saying, but I’m just looking at the times, at 6:47 p.m. I’m bathing the kids, there’s no reply from me.”
Pressed further, Vardy said her next message was about Gemma Collins “faceplanting” on Dancing On Ice.
“Who is Davey Jones?”
Rebekah Vardy was spotted leaving the High Court on Thursday
The court also heard how a “catalog” of “unfortunate events” meant messages from Ms Watt’s phone were unavailable to the court.
The jury was reminded that Ms Watt’s phone had fallen in the North Sea and Mr Sherborne said messages between the agent and the Sun journalist were now “sitting in Davy Jones’ locker at the bottom of the sea”.
Ms Vardy replied: “Who is Davy Jones?”
“It means at the bottom of the sea,” Ms Justice Steyn said.
Other “unfortunate events” that led to the missing messages also included Vardy’s laptop having to be disposed of because it was “damaged beyond repair,” prosecutors said.
Mr Sherborne asked Vardy what happened to the messages exchanged between October 15, 2019 and July 25, 2020 as the breaking of the laptop was not responsible for them being unavailable.
The TV personality said she might have switched phones but doesn’t know.
Vardy compared Rooney to ‘arguing with a pigeon’
She was also asked about an interview she gave to the Daily Mail after Rooney’s viral post outed her as an alleged leak.
When asked if she had an argument with Rooney after the post, Vardy had told the newspaper: “It would be like arguing with a pigeon. You can tell her you’re right and she’s wrong, but she’ll still *** your hair.”
Speaking to the court, Vardy said she was “desperately” trying to “diffuse” the situation and gave the interview “rightly or wrongly.”
In the article, she said that “a dozen” people had her Instagram login and password, so any of them could have seen Rooney’s private posts on the app.
But Mr Sherborne said: “We now know it’s not true, don’t we?”
Vardy said she “wasn’t thinking straight” at the time.
The infamous WAG photo
Vardy was accused of “orchestrating” a photo of WAGs at the 2018 World Cup. Image: Splash News
The 40-year-old too denied having “orchestrated” a photo of wives and girlfriends of soccer players at the 2018 World Cup.
Mr Sherborne referenced a message exchange between Vardy and her agent in which Ms Watt said she had “sorted a photographer out for tomorrow” and Vardy replied “OK”.
Vardy said Ms Watt hired a photographer to take pictures of her as she left her hotel, but refused to give the photographer the location of the hotel or a restaurant she was going to with a group of women and friends that evening of the English team had gone .
