LAST UPDATE | 11 May 2022
REBEKAH VARDY HAS denied being prepared “to lie under oath” when she said conversations with her agent about leaking information and receiving payment were “never serious”, the High Court has heard.
The mother-of-five, giving evidence on the second day of the “Wagatha Christie” libel trial, claimed she had no knowledge that agent Caroline Watt might be “constantly monitoring” Coleen Rooney’s Instagram account.
In a viral social media post in October 2019, Coleen Rooney, 36, said she had carried out a “sting operation” and accused Vardy, 40, of leaking “false stories” about her private life to the press.
Vardy, who is married to Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, denies leaking stories to the media and is suing her fellow footballer’s wife for libel, while Rooney is defending the claim on the basis her post was “substantially true”.
Today, Vardy was questioned by Rooney’s barrister David Sherborne about what he suggested were inconsistencies between her evidence in court and her witness statement.
In her written statement, Vardy said: “I have sometimes been caught up in the heat of the moment during conversations with Caroline where I have talked about ‘leaks’ and payment, but these conversations were never serious, and Caroline would have understood that.
“I have never been paid for private information about anybody apart from myself or my family.”
The court earlier heard Vardy told her agent she “wanted paying” for information about then-Chelsea player Danny Drinkwater leaving police custody after crashing his car in 2019.
Vardy told the High Court in the UK that she was “just joking” following an allegation that she told her agent to leak a story about a celebrity having an affair with a footballer behind her husband’s back.
Drinkwater was banned from the roads for 20 months and ordered to do 70 hours of community service after pleading guilty to drink driving.
Reading texts between her and Watt, Sherborne said: “You say ‘he’s only just been let out of the cells last night’ and then said you wanted paying for this.
“To which she said ‘which police station? They will need to confirm with the police station before they write it’. The ‘they’ she’s referring to is The Sun, isn’t it?”
Vardy confirmed “they” referred to The Sun, but, explaining the comment about being paid for information, she said: “It was a fleeting thought and one I didn’t consider any more then when I wrote it.”
“It wasn’t a serious comment,” she added. She later said “it was something that wrongly I got involved with”.
Vardy said she apologised and that the “messages were not good”, adding it was about something that “affected me very badly in the past”.
Sherborne asked Vardy whether she still stood by witness statement evidence, to which she replied: “Yes, apart from the Danny Drinkwater one.”
Sherborne said: “So, there’s an exception.”
‘Prepared to lie under oath’
The barrister said: “I put it to you that when you say in that witness statement that these conversations were never serious and Caroline would have understood that, that’s completely untrue isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not,” she replied.
He continued: “What this shows, Mrs Vardy, is that you are prepared to lie under oath.”
She replied: “No.”
Vardy conceded in court that it was “undeniable” that her agent had seen something on Rooney’s Instagram account but said she had no knowledge of Watt “monitoring” it.
Sherborne highlighted that on the first day of the trial, Vardy had agreed it would have been “wrong” if Watt was looking at people’s private Instagram accounts through the use of Vardy’s account.
Earlier today, Vardy was questioned about messages between her and agent Caroline Watt about an affair between a “well-known celebrity” known only as “Mrs F” and a footballer referred to as “Mr G”.
Sherborne told the court that Vardy had texted her agent: “Omg have you seen how badly Mrs F is behaving x … I’m actually disgusted by her x” followed by a message “leak the story about her shagging G behind H’s back”.
Asked about the messages, Vardy said: “I was just joking when I said this comment.”
“Ms Watt doesn’t think you’re just joking when you say that,” Sherborne replied.
‘Outrageous’ WhatApps
Earlier on Wednesday, Vardy told the court: “Ms Watt and I have been friends for a long time, sometimes our WhatsApps were outrageous.
“These are conversations between friends gossiping […] they don’t read very well but there is always an explanation.”
Vardy also said that she was “just gossiping” when asked about messages sent to her agent about the failure of one of her husband’s then-teammates to come to training in 2018.
Sherborne read a message from Vardy to Watt about then-Leicester City footballer Riyad Mahrez not coming to training, telling Watt “the lads are fuming”.
Vardy said: “It was speculation of just bits of information that I had heard and overheard, and also read in the press before.”
She added: “Yes, it doesn’t look good there, I was gossiping about things that were already in the public domain. I was just gossiping.”
She denied an accusation her agent passed information to The Sun about fellow Leicester players’ reaction to Mahrez missing training.
When asked if Watt had told the newspaper other players were “fuming” about the incident, she said: “That’s absolutely not true.”
Vardy later denied a suggestion that it was “standard practice” for her to leak private information to The Sun newspaper via Watt.
Coleen Rooney is defending the libel claim on the basis of truth and public interest.
The court previously heard that both women have spent “hundreds of thousands of pounds” on the case so far, with the total costs of the case expected to be at least £2 million (€2.34 million).
The fake stories Rooney planted on her Instagram during the sting operation featured her travelling to Mexico for a “gender selection” procedure, her planning to return to TV, and the basement flooding at her home.
In the post on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, she wrote: “I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person has viewed them.
“It’s ………. Rebekah Vardy’s account.”
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