Rebekah Vardy – live: Coleen Rooney’s triumphant messages to friends after ‘Wagatha Christie’ reveal post

Rebekah Vardy is seeking “substantial damages” from Coleen Rooney in her libel trial at the High Court.

In her lawyer’s closing submissions, they argue: “A substantial award of damages should be made in this case.

“The libel was very serious and was published to a huge number of people. Mrs Vardy has suffered very serious (and continuing) abuse as a result. The defence has concluded in an aggressive manner, including at the trial, greatly aggravating the damage caused.”

Earlier in their submission, they argued: “As a result of the untrue defamatory allegation in the Post Mrs Vardy has suffered very serious harm to her reputation and huge distress and upset.

“She has been subjected to entirely foreseeable public abuse and ridicule on a massive scale. As a result, she is entitled to substantial damages for libel.”

Ms Vardy’s claim that she was unaware that Ms Watt was leaking Ms Rooney’s information to The Sun is “completely unsustainable”, Mr Sherborne said.

Referring to Ms Watt passing information to The Sun about Coleen’s Honda crash, Mr Sherborne said her claim was “completely unsustainable in the face of Ms Watt’s message ‘It was me’”.

“The car crash is one example where we do at least have some relevant documents,” Mr Sherborne added. He said that there was not as much documentation about the other posts and stories - such as the Mexico gender selection story on Coleen Rooney’s Instagram.

He suggested to the court that this was because key messages and media has been deleted off Ms Vardy’s phone.

Referring to a message Ms Vardy sent to Ms Watt allegedly telling her to “leak” stories about Danielle Lloyd, Mr Sherborne said: “The use of the word leak comes so easily from Ms Vardy’s mouth”.

Rebekah Vardy has returned to the court room with her laywer. Ms Rooney’s lawyer David Sherborne is still making his closing remarks in the trial.

David Sherborne also claimed there had been a “targeted deletion” of messages between Rebekah Vardy and Caroline Watt between 15 October 2019 and 25 July 2020.

He later alleged there had been a “clear and concerted effort on the part of Mrs Vardy to conceal relevant and incriminating evidence not just from us but from the court”.

Mr Sherborne said this could not be compared to the loss of some data by Mrs Rooney in the case.

Mr Sherborne claimed that Caroline Watt’s withdrawal of her written statement before the start of the trial, in which she denied being involved in leaking, demonstrated that “she knew she was going to be found to have lied if her evidence was tested”.

David Sherborne discussed the loss of Ms Watt’s phone, saying the “first we heard of the phone being dropped into the water was four months after”.

He continued: “This ill-fated trip took place only days after the court had requested her phone to be inspected.”

Mr Sherborne said this request may have been “unexpected” because Caroline Watt was not a party to the claim, adding “the story, we say, is fishy enough - no pun intended”, due to the date of the phone’s loss.

He continued: “The fact that Mrs Vardy...chose not to tell her solicitors for the lengthy period of fourth months... demonstrates that this was far from an accident.”

The barrister said that as there are two copies of any WhatsApp chat, Ms Watt’s phone would have contained a full copy of what had been lost from Rebekah Vardy’s phone.

“It was therefore, we say, necessary for both to be destroyed. RIP Ms Watt’s phone,” Mr Sherborne added.

David Sherborne said the trial had not heard evidence from the journalists who wrote the Sun articles in dispute in the case.

The barrister claimed the inference from this was that “they would be unable to say that Mrs Vardy was not the direct source or indirect source through (Rebekah Vardy’s agent) Ms Watt”.

Mr Sherborne added that the court had also not heard evidence from agent Caroline Watt who he alleged “clearly had repeated contact with these journalists”.

Ms Watt had a “hand-in-glove” relationship with Ms Vardy, Mr Sherborne claimed, adding: “No Caroline Watt is like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark”. “Hamlet not just without the prince but all the rest of the royal court,” the barrister said.

He said this included Rebekah Vardy’s husband and Danny Hayward, who ran Front Row Partnership, Ms Vardy’s agency. “Both of them have remained silent,” he said

Ms Rooney’s lawyer Mr Sherborne has referred to Jamie Vardy’s statement outside court, in which the Leicester City footballer said Wayne’s testimony was “nonsense.”

Referring to Mr Vardy, Mr Sherborne said he “didn’t give evidence in court, not in this court, but he chose to make a press statement outside court while we were sitting here.”

“It’s not lost on the court I’m sure that while he was perfectly willing” to make a statement outside court, Mr Sherborne said, “Mr Vardy was apparently unwilling to provide one for the process of these proceedings... despite being aware from the 1 April that Mr Rooney was going to give that evidence.”

Ms Rooney’s lawyer David Sherborne has said that Ms Rooney stands by the truth of her ‘Wagatha Christie’ reveal post and believes it “even more so now” that she has gone through this trial.

Mr Sherborne told the court that “the issue of truth” lies “at the centre of this case”.

He added: “The burden lies on us to establish on a balance of probabilities that the post is substantially true.”

The barrister claim that Mrs Rooney’s legal team had proved a “wider” meaning to Coleen Rooney’s so-called “reveal” post than that which Rebekah Vardy complained of.

He said this was that “Mrs Vardy has regularly and frequently leaked to The Sun information about a number of people she knows”

Discussing Coleen Rooney’s private Instagram account, Mr Sherborne said: “The suggestion that the information that was being posted on was not very private and this should affect the defence of truth is also misconceived.”

He added: “Whether a matter of common sense or law, Mrs (Rebekah) Vardy is still responsible for the act of her agent Caroline Watt.”

The barrister later said there were “a number of extraordinary features of this case”.“The first is the amount of documents that are not before the court,” he said.

Discussing the viral social media post, the barrister added: “It is what she believed at the time... and it is what she believes even more so now that we have got to the end of the case.”

Ms Vardy has left court carrying a laptop, and followed by one of her solicitors, as Ms Rooney’s lawyer David Sherborne gives his closing speech.

Ms Rooney’s lawyer David Sherborne argued that Ms Vardy carried out ‘cover up’ to hide ‘incriminating evidence’.

He explained that there is significant evidence missing from the trial.

“The first is the amount of documents which are not before the court,” Mr Sherborne said.

“A catalogue of coincidences and misfortunes, or as we have put, the most likely explanation... is deletion or destruction”

He added: “The witnesses who have not given evidence, we have not heard from any of the journalists of the disputed articles.”

Mr Sherborne is arguing that Ms Vardy’s explanation that her laptop crashed when she was trying to export her Whatsapp messages with her agent Caroline Watt is not true.

Nine months of messages between Ms Vardy and Ms Watt and media from the chats have gone missing, the court was told.

“There is only one conclusion that the court should reach and that is that Mrs Vardy deleted the Whatsapp chat and that she has lied on oath and in her witness statement.”

“There is only one reason that she has taken such a step...it was done to cover up incriminating evidence, there is no other plausible explanation.”

The High Court are meeting hear the closing statements in the libel battle between Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy.

But while Ms Vardy turned up for the trial, neither Ms Rooney nor her husband - who has watched every other day at the court - were present.

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