Vardy claimed Rooney had damaged her reputation with the Wagatha Christie investigation into who was leaking Instagram stories to the press, which Rooney concluded was Vardy. Ms Karen Stein ruled that Rooney had succeeded in proving that the substance of the libel was “substantially true”. A judgment released today, two months after the trial, by the High Court of Justice Queen’s Bench Division found that Vardy and her agent Caroline Watt were involved in a series of false stories that Rooney posted on Instagram and that Watt forwarded directly these stories to a reporter at the Sun. Vardy took an active part in the proceedings, Ms Justice Steyn ruled. He also found there were gaps in Vardy’s evidence. Watt did not attend the trial and it was held that the main reason for this was because she knew that much of the evidence she was going to give (but then retracted) was untrue. “Mrs Vardy did not call her close friend and agent, Ms Watt, as a witness,” today’s ruling read. “Given the allegation that information from the private Instagram account was leaked directly to reporters at the Sun by Ms Watt, with Ms Vardy’s knowledge and approval, Ms Watt is a vital witness to the issues at stake, whose absence is striking ». Crucial WhatsApp messages between Vardy and Watt from 2017 and 2019 were missing and the judge ruled they were deliberately deleted. The 75-page decision document also criticized the abuse Vardy has received online since Rooney’s post was revealed in 2019. “Some members of the public responded to the revealing post by subjecting Ms Vardy to violent abuse, including messages wishing her, her family and even her (then unborn) baby sick in the most horrific terms,” the judgment said. “Nothing Ms Vardy has been charged with, nor any of the findings in this judgment, provides any justification or justification for subjecting her family, or anyone else involved in this case, to such vitriol.” A seven-day trial took place at the High Court in May. Rooney famously posted on social media in October 2019 that she believed Vardy was responsible for leaking content from Rooney’s private Instagram account. Rooney described in court her “operation” to reduce the number of followers who could see her Instagram posts in a bid to find out how stories about her were introduced to the press, specifically The Sun newspaper. He planted false stories on Instagram and eventually made them visible on a single account, which belonged to Rebekah Vardy, who has always denied Rooney’s allegations and sued her for defamation in 2020, which she said was a last resort to “ live up to her reputation”. Wayne Rooney, then Derby manager, attended court almost every day of the trial, while Rebekah Vardy’s husband Jamie appeared on the day Wayne Rooney gave evidence of a meeting he said the pair had during Euro 2016 when Rooney said he was asked by manager Roy Hodgson to speak to Vardy about his wife’s newspaper column. The Leicester striker denied the meeting ever took place, saying: “Wayne is talking nonsense.” (Photo: Getty Images) GO DEEPER Wagatha Christie revealed
