Rebekah Vardy was abused at football matches, received death threats, and branded an ‘evil rat-faced b****’ following Coleen Rooney‘s Instagram post accusing her of leaking stories to the press, the £3million ‘Wagatha Christie’ trial heard today.
Introducing the case, Rebekah’s barrister, Hugh Tomlinson QC, said his client ‘had no choice’ but to bring the libel claim against Coleen Rooney to ‘establish her innocence and vindicate her reputation’.
He said Rebekah and her family had been ‘subjected to abuse and threats’ over the accusations, including being ‘jeered and heckled at football matches’ and ‘made the butt of endless jokes’.
He said his client had been called ‘an evil rat face b****’ on social media, and that posts went on to say she ‘should die’ as well as saying ‘her baby should be put in an incinerator’. Another troll even accused her of abducting Madeleine McCann.
Rebekah Vardy arriving at the High Court in London today accompanied by security guards
The WAGS have been at war since October 2019 after Coleen accused Rebekah of leaking ‘false stories’ about her private life, before claiming that she uncovered the culprit after carrying out a social media ‘sting operation’.
Coleen publicly claimed her fellow footballer’s wife 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.
Opening the case for Rebekah, Mr Tomlinson QC said: ‘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 newspaper from her private Instagram account.
‘Mrs Rooney did not have the ‘irrefutable’ evidence that she claimed to have had: her so-called ”careful investigation’ was nothing of the sort.
‘If anyone had been leaking information from Mrs Rooney’s private Instagram this was not done with Mrs Vardy’s knowledge or approval.’
He continued: ‘Mrs Vardy made strenuous but unsuccessful attempts to settle the case but the post was not taken down.
‘As result, Mrs Vardy had no choice but to bring this libel action to establish her innocence and vindicate her reputation.’
Coleen’s ‘revelations’ were liked 193,000 times on Instagram and 300,000 times on Twitter, Mr Tomlinson said.
Coleen Rooney, wife of Derby County manager Wayne Rooney, arrives with her husband at the Royal Courts of Justice in London this morning
The court heard Rebekah had suffered ‘enormous distress and upset’ over the allegations.
Mr Tomlinson continued: ‘The fact that the parties are each married to well-known footballers has led to this action being trivialised in some media coverage as ‘WAG wars’.
He added that it was ‘obvious that Mrs Vardy has suffered, and continues to suffer, enormous distress and upset as a result of its publication’.
‘As a result of the post, Mrs Vardy and her family were subjected to abuse and threats. She was jeered and heckled at football matches and was the butt of endless jokes and further accusations,’ he said.
Mr Tomlinson said Coleen accepted her post was defamatory of Rebekah but denied that it caused ‘serious harm’ and her ‘main defence’ was that it was true.
The case continues.
Happier times: The former friends pictured celebrating England’s win against Wales at Stade Bollaert-Delelis in France (pictured in 2016)
