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Rebekah Vardy has lost her Libel Case against Coleen Rooney earlier today. Rooney had accused Rebekah Vardy of selling fake stories about her to the press, leading to a viral social media post from Coleen.
In October 2019, Coleen Rooney released several Instagram stories, detailing a story of one of her followers leaking stories to the tabloids. The wife of former Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney carried out a ‘sting operation’ by removing all other followers from her private story and leaving just Rebekah Vardy, the wife of Rooney’s former teammate Jamie Vardy, able to view her posts.
Rebekah Vardy sued Coleen Rooney for libel and denied all accusations and claims made by Coleen.
Mrs Justice Steyn ruled that it was “likely” that Rebekah’s former agent Caroline Watt had been the one selling stories to The Sun.
Mrs Justice Steyn said:
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“Nonetheless, the evidence ... clearly shows, in my view, that Mrs Vardy knew of and condoned this behaviour, actively engaging in it by directing Ms Watt to the private Instagram account, sending her screenshots of Mrs Rooney's posts, drawing attention to items of potential interest to the press, and answering additional queries raised by the press via Ms Watt."
“In my judgement, the conclusions that I have reached as to the extent to which the claimant engaged in disclosing to The Sun information to which she only had access as a permitted follower of an Instagram account which she knew, and Mrs Rooney repeatedly asserted, was private, suffice to show the single meaning is substantially true."
After the hearing lasted seven days in court, it’s reported that Vardy will have to pay around £3 million in damages to Coleen Rooney.
