The "Wagatha Christie" Coleen Rooney/ Rebekah Vardy court case

[Iwantacatnotcovid]

Is anyone else following it?

Vardy's phone was accidentally dropped into the North Sea... Yeah right!

[ImAvingOops]

But if Vardy had said that it wasn't her but other do have access to her account, lots of people would have thought that was feasible because we all know that celebrities employ people to manage their accounts. And it would have avoided all those nasty texts becoming public and the dredging up of the Peter Andre story and all the other unsavoury things she's said and done.

If CR loses then she still saves total face by putting out a statement that it's impossible to prove a case with the evidence missing and no testimony from Watt. The public has had it laid out exactly how Vardy talks about people, her willingness to throw anyone under the bus, even using CR little sister. Rooney really can't lose.

[prh47bridge]

@guinnessguzzler

Precisely! And personally I thought it was really clear that '... it's Rebekah Vardy's account' meant exactly that. I think the previous ruling on that specific issue was grossly unfair. It was Rebekah Vardy's account and that's what Colleen said.

Except it isn't what she said.

Whilst Rooney's final sentence was "it was Rebekah Vardy's account", her previous sentence stated, "just one person has viewed them", not "just one account", and she started by saying that "someone I trusted" had been giving stories to the Sun, not "someone with access to the account of someone I trusted". Reading the whole thread that she posted, it is clearly an accusation that Vardy was leaking, not just someone with access to her account. And, as @PortiaFimbriata says, that is clearly what people reading her posts understood. It is also how it was reported in the press at the time. The Guardian headline, for example, was, "Coleen Rooney accuses Rebekah Vardy of leaking stories to Sun", not that she was accusing someone with access to Vardy's account. The judge was therefore absolutely correct to decide that the ordinary person reading Rooney's posts would interpret them as an accusation that Vardy was leaking to the press.

[PortiaFimbriata]

It's not a defence to libel that you honestly believe that what you're saying is true (unless you're claiming the specific defence of "honest opinion" which Rooney isn't). It needs to actually be true.

The problem with CR's "I only said it was her account, I never said it was her" defence is that a quick search of Twitter from the day will show you a hundred posts saying "Blimey, what a total snake RV has turned out to be" and literally none saying "goodness, I wonder who the guilty party with access to RV's Instagram account could be". It does make the "what would the ordinary person have concluded" argument a lot more decisive.

[guinnessguzzler]

Precisely! And personally I thought it was really clear that '... it's Rebekah Vardy's account' meant exactly that. I think the previous ruling on that specific issue was grossly unfair. It was Rebekah Vardy's account and that's what Colleen said.

[TigerLilyTail]

What I don't understand is that if the average person was supposed to think that by saying RV's account that it meant RV herself was in someway responsible, then why doesn't that logic apply back to CR? When CR had evidence that RV's account was behind the leaks, then surely it was reasonable for her to assume that RV was involved?

I also don't understand why if RV had no knowledge of the leaks coming from her account but knew that others had access, surely her response to the accusation would be "That's terrible! While, I would personally never do something like that, others have access to my account, so I will personally check and make sure nothing like this happens again".

[prh47bridge]

@ImAvingOops

I still can't get my head around how you can defame a person by accusing them of things they have a proven history of actually doing!

That is one of the things the judge will have to consider. It is only libel if it can cause serious harm to your reputation. If you don't have a good reputation to start with, serious harm is unlikely.

[ImAvingOops]

I still can't get my head around how you can defame a person by accusing them of things they have a proven history of actually doing!

[prh47bridge]

@Candleabra

I’m sure it’s been explained already but I don’t understand why the burden of proof is on Coleen if RV took her to court. I always thought it was up to the complainant to prove their case.

It is up to the claimant to prove their case. Vardy has to show that Rooney made the accusation, that it referred to her and that it was defamatory. Rooney's defence is that her accusation was substantially true. It is therefore up to her to prove her case.

[prh47bridge]

@ImAvingOops

I don't get why the judge ruled that CR has to prove it was specifically RV - Rooney said it was her account (and while I think that the owner should be held accountable for what their employees post on their behalf) and that should be good enough - I don't think Rooney should be responsible for how people interpret her words.
I thought law was about what is specifically written

Libel is entirely about what people reading your words think you mean. You are absolutely responsible for how your words are interpreted. If the average person would take Rooney's words as meaning Vardy was responsible for the leaks, that is how the courts must approach it. Rooney doesn't have to prove that Vardy was the one who actually gave the story to the press, but she does have to prove that Vardy was responsible.

[prh47bridge]

@user1471543094

I don't think RV has done enough to prove that she didn't leak the story (her defence seems to be that she "jokes" about leaking stories but didn't about THIS one). The messages between her and her agent about looking at Colleen's account are surely very telling.
Oh and also she was pregnant and apparently should never say anything bad about someone who is pregnant.

CR says she has screenshots showing that RV's account was the only one who viewed the stories that were leaked. Surely that is proof then? And she could reasonably be expected to believe that she was in fact telling the truth when she made the post.
Does the fact that Collen THOUGHT she was telling the truth at least help her at all. From her point of view, she wasn't lying or making it up. To her it was quite clearly Vardy's account.
If for some reason she was wrong (which I doubt) - does the fact that she 100% believe this to be truth help her?

No, the fact that she thought she was telling the truth doesn't help. She has to prove that her allegation was substantially true. The fact that she thought it was true is irrelevant.

[prh47bridge]

@Morph22010

I suppose anyone can get representation if you pay enough! I doubt it’s a no win no fee

Anyone can get representation fullstop. Barristers are required to operate on the cab rank principle. If you work in a particular area of law and someone wants to engage you to work in that area and is willing to pay your standard rate, you must represent them.

[prh47bridge]

@Gymnopedie

I can see where he was coming from in saying 'the ordinary man would think...' but in some ways it seems perverse. Usually in law it's what's written that counts, not what you might interpret or intend it to mean, whether that's in contracts or wills.

However if RV does turn round and say yes it happened but it's all the fault of her agent, then doesn't that make what CR said true - and the defence to defamation is that it was the truth - that it DID come from Vardy's account?

But surely you can’t just claim all the evidence is lost or destroyed? And don't forget the agent, who is 'too ill' to be a witness.

Defamation is all about what the ordinary person reading the comments would think. Rooney wasn't writing a legal document. She was writing for ordinary men and women. It is not in any way perverse to look at her words that way. It is what is required by the relevant law.

[prh47bridge]

@TigerLilyTail

I still think that CR said the leaks were coming from RV's account and it seems pretty certain they were coming from RV's account, so I still don't understand the earlier judge's ruling on that one.

It was a very straightforward ruling. Rooney's lawyers tried to widen the meaning to include anyone with access to Vardy's account. This would have helped if Vardy had stuck to her original story that her account had been hacked and would have made it easier to win. The judge decided that the ordinary person reading Rooney's comments would have interpreted them as meaning that Vardy was responsible for the breach of trust. Since that is clearly how most people have interpreted Rooney's words, that seems to be the correct decision.

[prh47bridge]

@MoonriseKingdom

I know nothing of the law but the loss of data obviously looks very suspicious to an outsider. Legally can this go against Vardy though? Can the judge decide if this was likely deliberate. It seems unfair to Colleen that she has to prove it was RV who leaked the information but the evidence is destroyed and the agent can’t be cross examined!

Yes, the judge can draw inferences from the fact that a lot of information went missing after Vardy was ordered to disclose it.

[prh47bridge]

@QuebecBagnet

Rooney thought she was being smart saying the leak was from Vardys account and not actually saying it was Vardy. There was an earlier hearing to make a judgement on this and Rooney lost, the judge instructed that even though she said account everyone would read it as accusing Vardy so that’s what she had done.

so now Rooney has to prove it was Vardy and not the agent or someone else who knew Vardys account password and could log in. This is where I think she might come unstuck.

think I have that right.

I wish a Sun journalist would drop her in it but they always protect their sources so they won’t.

Rooney does not have to prove it was Vardy who actually made contact with the journalist. If the agent was leaking on Vardy's behalf, that would be enough for Rooney to win.

[fearoftheoffice]

@friendlycat

I love the fact The Sun have printed The Vardy’s want to move to American ASAP
Their spokesperson has denied this saying it’s false. Oh the irony and with The Sun.

The barrister summing up for CR certainly paints a terrible picture of RV when all the points of the trial and leaks are categorised in summary. Whilst obviously nothing new, the various points one after another in succinct detail make terrible reading. Not a wonder she left the courtroom.

Agree. Do you think she realised she has done all this and could lose

[friendlycat]

I love the fact The Sun have printed The Vardy’s want to move to American ASAP
Their spokesperson has denied this saying it’s false. Oh the irony and with The Sun.

The barrister summing up for CR certainly paints a terrible picture of RV when all the points of the trial and leaks are categorised in summary. Whilst obviously nothing new, the various points one after another in succinct detail make terrible reading. Not a wonder she left the courtroom.

[newnamethanks]

Hear hear, thecats, the lawyers will be p'ing themselves with laughter over this. RV is the gift that keeps on giving 💰

[thecatsthecats]

One of the most ridiculous misconceptions on this thread is that people feel sorry for the lawyers.

All the legal professionals I know feel like this is all their Christmases come at once. Just because they're paid to execute professional duties doesn't mean that they can't enjoy a nice messy scandal like the rest of us.

[TigerLilyTail]

A friend said she felt sorry for the lawyers. I have to say the lawyers are the last people I feel sorry for. They must have made a fortune off this case.

The tabloids say that Coleen and Wayne have gone off on holiday so will miss closing arguments today.

[newnamethanks]

We'll get the results when the judge, poor woman, has read and considered the evidence then come to a conclusion. It may take a while and who could blame her.

[ImAvingOops]

Just seen Nicola McClean do a valiant job of trying to defend RV on the Jeremy Vine programme on Ch5. But I still don't know how a person could claim defamation of character if their character literally includes selling stories to tabloids!

[TigerLilyTail]

@SpaceCadetCat

When will we get the results?

Apparently “at a later date”.

I still think the whole thing stinks.

CR posted the stories and only RV’s account could see the stories.

The stories then ended up in The Sun.

CR posted what she’d done and said that RV’s account was responsible.

It just seems like she was being factual. How on Earth did she end up in court over this? It’s madness. I really hope she doesn’t lose.

[SpaceCadetCat]

When will we get the results?

[meadowbleu]

From @RoyalCorgi
'The important thing to remember, though, is that Rooney doesn't have to prove her statement beyond reasonable doubt, just on the balance of probabilities. And I think she and her lawyers have done a good job of doing that. It seems clear that only Vardy and Watt had access to the Instagram account - at least I've seen no evidence that anyone else had access to it. The fact that a lot of the evidence has been conveniently lost, and that Watt is too ill to testify, will, I think count in Rooney's favour. A key bit of evidence yesterday from an IT expert suggested that the missing WhatsApp messages had been deliberately deleted. I'm surprised that hasn't been more widely reported because it seems highly significant.'

I agree it's highly significant and how unfortunate for RV that this witness was called by her own team, was he not? Quite a spectacular own goal. So that's RV's phone that was changed at some stage and her lap top that lost data during a transfer to her solicitor, both meaning the Whatsapp loss 🙄 JV's laptop also apparently suffered some fate or another and on top of that, the Agent's phone ended up residing in Davy Jones' locker 3 days or so after the court had ordered it to be offered up in evidence.

Just how far is the Judge allowed to allow for such a series of unfortunate, and most would say, unlikely, coincidences?

I think it also reflects badly that after WR's evidence that England football management were unimpressed with RV's conduct, the Vardys left court early and took the opportunity for JV to speak to the media denying what WR had said under oath. If he's so sure about that, you'd think he'd have been prepared to issue a sworn statement to the court, through the proper channels, unless it's too late to submit a rebuttal. Regardless, it's in the public arena and doesn't reflect well on the Vardys.