Coleen Rooney has won the latest round in the Wagatha Christie saga, with a High Court judge today (10 April) dismissing Rebekah Vardy’s appeal over legal costs
Rebekah Vardy has lost out to Coleen Rooney again, after a High Court judge ruled that Coleen’s lawyers didn’t commit misconduct over costs.
The WAGs were embroiled in a legal battle in 2022 after Rebekah sued Coleen for libel. She took action after I’m A Celebrity star Coleen accused her of leaking stories about her to the papers, but ended up losing in court.
However, the case – which was dubbed Wagatha Christie – wasn’t fully over, as the issue of legal costs has been rumbling on. Rebekah had originally been ordered to fork out for 90% of Coleen’s costs, which were in the region of £1.8 million.
Rebekah’s lawyers had argued that Coleen’s legal team had committed “serious misconduct” by understating some of her costs to “attack the other party’s costs”. Coleen’s team insisted there had been “no misconduct” and in October last year, a judge ruled that the star’s legal team hadn’t committed wrongdoing and that it was not “appropriate” to reduce the amount Vardy should pay.
Senior costs judge, Andrew Gordon-Saker found that while there was a “failure to be transparent”, it was “not “sufficiently unreasonable or improper” to constitute misconduct. Rebekah, who is married to footy ace Jamie Vardy, appealed the decision earlier this year – which Coleen’s team disputed.
Jamie Carpenter KC, representing Vardy, had claimed Coleen had understated her legal costs by around 40 per cent in her budget in a document called “precedent H” 2021. He had argued that it was “disproportionate”, but Robin Dunne, for Rooney, said there had been “no misconduct” and that it was “Illogical to say we misled anyone”.
But Vardy has lost again as her appeal has now been dismissed by a judge – meaning she will have to pay the £1.8m bill. In the High Court today (10 April) Mr Justice Cavanagh explained: “The appeal must fail on the basis that the judge was entitled to reach the conclusion that he came to.”
In a 38-page ruling, he found that Judge Gordon-Saker had “ample material” to reach his decision, and that there was “no valid basis for challenging on appeal the judge’s conclusion”.
He said: “The court was not persuaded that the claimant had proved that the defendant’s legal advisers had deliberately misled the court, or the claimant, either by things said or things not said.”
The Wagatha scandal started in 2019 when Coleen, who is married to Wayne Rooney, posted a message on Instagram saying that someone had been leaking stories about her to the press. She had a suspicion about who it might be and turned detective to try and find out for sure.
She told her fans: “To try and prove this, I came up with an idea. I blocked everyone from viewing my Instagram stories except ONE account. (Those on my private account must have been wondering why I haven’t had stories on there for a while.)
“Over the past five months I have posted a series of false stories to see if the made their way into the Sun newspaper. And you know what, they did!”
She then pointed the finger at Rebekah, saying the stories were being leaked by her. However, the brunette maintained her innocence and took legal action for libel.
The case went to court in 2022 but Rebekah lost, after a judge found that Coleen’s sensational Instagram post was “substantially true”.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
