Rebekah Vardy was stared down by Coleen Rooney as she denied leaking stories about her and said she ‘deeply regrets’ comparing Peter Andre’s manhood to a chipolata as she took to the witness stand at today’s Wagatha Christie trial.
With her hair tied into a bun, the wife of Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy walked across the courtroom and passed within inches of her rival Coleen, 36, who glanced in her direction for the first time all day.
The 40-year-old then took to the stand and swore on the Bible before being quizzed by Coleen’s barrister David Sherborne.
The WAGs have been at war since October 2019 after Coleen accused her fellow footballer’s wife of leaking ‘false stories’ about her private life, before claiming she had uncovered the culprit after carrying out a social media ‘sting operation’.
Coleen publicly claimed Rebekah shared three fake stories she had posted on her personal Instagram with The Sun, a claim Rebekah vehemently denied – leading her to launch the costly libel action which finally reached trial today.
Today, Rebekah repeatedly denied leaking information to newspapers in the first few minutes of her cross-examination by Mrs Rooney’s barrister.
Mr Sherborne said: ‘You wouldn’t want to be called a leaker, would you?’
Rebekah replied: ‘I have been called a leaker and it’s not nice.’
The barrister later asked if Rebekah respected people’s privacy, to which she replied: ‘Yes, I do.’
He then asked her questions about an interview she gave to the News Of The World about Mrs Vardy’s claimed sexual encounter with singer Peter Andre.
Mr Sherborne showed what appeared to an A3 print out of the article to Rebekah in the witness box before reading the headline: ‘Peter’s hung like a small chipolata, shaved, slobbery, lasts five minutes’.
The barrister read excerpts from the article, in which it was claimed Mr Andre had managed ‘just five minutes of sex with Rebekah’ and in which she said he had ‘the smallest trouser equipment I’ve ever seen’ that was like a ‘miniature chipolata’.
Mr Sherborne suggested to Rebekah that the News Of The World was the ‘highest circulating newspaper at the time’, read by some four million people, and asked her whether it was ‘respectful’ of Peter Andre’s ‘right not to share this information’.
She replied: ‘I was forced into a situation by my ex-husband to do this. It is something that I deeply regret… It is not nice to read and I understand why this is being used and to me this is mudslinging and I was also threatened with mudslinging by Mrs Rooney’s team.’
Asked the question again by Coleen Rooney’s barrister David Sherborne, Mrs Vardy said: ‘The circumstances around it were completely different.’
She later said she did not ask Mr Andre for his permission or tell him it was going to happen in advance.
Mr Sherborne asked: ‘Did you feel particularly strongly about the size of his manhood that it should be made public?’
Mrs Vardy replied: ‘It was something that I was forced to say.’
Among the key developments at today’s sensational Wagatha Christie showdown –
- Rebekah’s barrister says she ‘had no choice’ but to bring the libel claim against Coleen to ‘establish her innocence and vindicate her reputation’;
- He tells court she has been ‘jeered and heckled at football matches’ and ‘made the butt of endless jokes’ since the allegations emerged;
- Called ‘an evil rat face b****’ on social media, with posts going on to say she ‘should die’ and ‘her baby should be put in an incinerator’;
- Coleen’s famous Instagram sting was not a ‘careful investigation’ that produced ‘irrefutable’ evidence as she suggested, Rebekah’s barrister adds;
- Rebekah ‘has no knowledge’ of incident that saw agent Caroline Watt’s phone fall into the North Sea and ‘doesn’t know’ if she was a leaker;
- ‘Claim Rebekah was involved in ‘conspiracy’ and ‘campaign of deletion’ of evidence is ‘completely baseless”;
- Coleen’s barrister, David Sherborne, tells court the case hinges on ‘betrayal’ – whether it was by Rebekah who betrayed Coleen by leaking information to The Sun or Coleen’s agent, Caroline Watt, who was responsible;
- Suggests that if Ms Watt was responsible for leaking the stories ‘she was doing Rebekah’s dirty work like a hitman’ – and accuses Rebekah of ‘lying’ for suggesting otherwise;
- Rebekah’s claim she sat behind Coleen at the 2016 Euros because they were the ‘nearest seats available’ was ‘untrue’, according to new witness statement;
- ‘Harry Maguire’s fiancée Fern Hawkins was ‘upset and embarrassed’ by Rebekah’s WAGs paparazzi photo at 2018 World Cup’;
- Rebekah ‘had the means, motive and opportunity to leak stories about Coleen’;
oday saw the toxic feud between Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy spill out into the High Court after months of painstaking pre-trial hearings.
Below is a summary of the evidence as it was heard in court:
Rebekah ‘had to vindicate her reputation’ following Coleen’s ‘flawed’ investigation
Today, Hugh Tomlinson QC, representing Rebekah, began setting out her case to the court.
At the heart of the dispute are three ‘fake’ stories which Coleen maintains that she posted on her personal Instagram stories as she attempted to discover who was leaking information about her and her family.
Wagatha Christie timeline: How Coleen and Rebekah’s long-running, vicious war unfolded before the eyes of the world
September 2017 to October 2019 – The Sun runs a number of articles about Coleen, including that she travelled to Mexico to look into baby ‘gender selection’ treatment, her plan to revive her TV career and the flooding of her basement.
October 9, 2019 – Coleen uses social media to accuse Rebekah of selling stories from her private Instagram account to the tabloids.
Coleen says she spent five months attempting to work out who was sharing information about her and her family based on posts she had made on her personal social media page.
After sharing a series of ‘false’ stories and using a process of elimination, Coleen claims they were viewed by one Instagram account, belonging to Rebekah.
Rebekah, then pregnant with her fifth child, denies the allegations and says various people had access to her Instagram over the years.
She claims to be ‘so upset’ by Coleen’s accusation, later adding: ‘I thought she was my friend but she completely annihilated me.’
The public dispute makes headlines around the world, with the hashtag #WagathaChristie trending.
How it all began: On October 9, 2019, Coleen Rooney, now 36, accused Rebekah Vardy, 40, of leaking ‘false stories’ about her to the press in an Instagram post (above)
+22View galleryShortly after Coleen’s public accusation, Rebekah – who was pregnant and on holiday in Dubai at the time – denied any involvement (above)
February 13, 2020 – In a tearful appearance on ITV’s Loose Women, Rebekah says the stress of the dispute caused her to have severe anxiety attacks and she ‘ended up in hospital three times’. Coleen says in a statement that she does not want to ‘engage in further public debate’.
June 23, 2020 – It emerges that Rebekah has launched libel proceedings against Coleen.
Rebekah’s lawyers allege she ‘suffered extreme distress, hurt, anxiety and embarrassment as a result of the publication of the post and the events which followed’.
November 19-20, 2020 – The libel battle has its first High Court hearing in London. A judge rules that Coleen’s October 2019 post ‘clearly identified’ Rebekah as being ‘guilty of the serious and consistent breach of trust’.
Mr Justice Warby concludes that the ‘natural and ordinary’ meaning of the posts was that Rebekah had ‘regularly and frequently abused her status as a trusted follower of Coleen’s personal Instagram account by secretly informing The Sun of Coleen’s private posts and stories’.
February 8-9, 2022 – A series of explosive messages between Rebekah and her agent Caroline Watt – which Coleen’s lawyers allege were about her – are revealed at a preliminary court hearing.
The court is told Rebekah was not referring to Coleen when she called someone a ‘nasty bitch’ in one exchange with Ms Watt.
Coleen’s lawyers seek further information from the WhatsApp messages, but the court is told that Ms Watt’s phone fell into the North Sea after a boat she was on hit a wave, before further information could be extracted from it.
February 14 – Coleen is refused permission to bring a High Court claim against Ms Watt for misuse of private information to be heard alongside the libel battle. A High Court judge, Mrs Justice Steyn, says the bid was brought too late and previous opportunities to make the claim had not been taken.
April 13 – Ms Watt is not fit to give oral evidence at the upcoming libel trial, the High Court is told as the case returns for another hearing.
The agent revokes permission for her witness statement to be used, and withdraws her waiver which would have allowed Sun journalists to say whether she was a source of the allegedly leaked stories.
April 29 – Rebekah ‘appears to accept’ that her agent was the source of allegedly leaked stories, Coleen’s barrister David Sherborne tells the High Court. He argues that a new witness statement submitted by Rebekah suggests Ms Watt was the source but Rebekah claims she ‘did not authorise or condone her’.
Rebekah’s lawyer Hugh Tomlinson says the statement did not contain ‘any change whatever in the pleaded case’, with her legal team having no communication with Ms Watt.
These were about Coleen claiming that she was travelling to Mexico to find out about gender selection, making a return to TV and flooding taking place at her new home. All three stories later appeared in The Sun.
Mr Tomlinson said that, on October 9, 2019, Coleen published a post to more than two million followers on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook which ‘accused Mrs Vardy of being the person who, over a period of years, had consistently and regularly leaked information about her, her friends and her family, to The Sun newspaper’.
He told the court ‘it was expressed in a dramatic style’, referring to the way Mrs Rooney posted ‘It’s ………. Rebekah Vardy’s account’.
Addressing the Instagram post, Rebekah’s barrister, Mr Tomlinson, told the High Court today: ‘The allegation in the post was and remains false: Mrs Vardy had not leaked information about Mrs Rooney or her friends and family to the Sun newspape
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