To think Rebekah Vardy has no chance?

[StillCoughingandLaughing]

Her case hinges on claiming someone has somehow hacked her account; be that someone she employs or someone who has somehow done it at random. Colleen Rooney very, very deliberately (and now infamously) stated ‘It’s... Rebekah Vardy’s account’.

She’s suing for libel, yet she hasn’t been personally accused. That wording was not an accident. Surely unless she can somehow prove that the fake stories were not accessed via her account, she has no case?

How much money is RV asking for?

I think that a lot of people will still believe it was RV even if the judge did find in her favour.

Based on that, if I was CR I wouldn't be settling unless the amount she was suing me for was well into the millions.

I wonder if they will work out who it was as part of the court case if it wasn’t vardy. That’s the easiest way to prove her innocence.

The big thing here is the sun knows. They will know exactly who was leaking it to them. This isn’t something that no one knows who did it. They were publishing those stories because they trusted the source and knew it wasn’t some random making shit up.

And they are watching this play out, knowing either vardy is lying or Colleen has it wrong.

Part of me thinks that because they have said nothing it was vardy, because otherwise they would just say we protect our sources and it wasn’t her. Vardy would have her lawyers on at them to confirm it was not her. As that would be an easy fix. But she’s not.

If I was innocent my first statement would be, it’s not me and the sun can confirm it and my lawyers are in touch with them to provide a legal statement confirming it was not me.

You can tell this pair are exactly the sort that usually settle their differences by having a totally uncivilised screaming match in the street, but because they have money it's been dragged into court instead. The lawyers must be laughing all the way to the bank (well perhaps not CR's anymore). As I said earlier, regardless of the outcome, all parties involved are just going to come out of this looking even more trashy than they went in. I'm not sure how you can libel and damage the reputation of someone who had zero credibility to begin with, but here we are.

I read that CR had said she wanted to settle out of court but RV refused, the reason given was that RV felt CR had left her with no option but to sue. Despite the fact that CR put account at the end of the statement it implied to everyone that it was RV, the judge seems to agree.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX

You can tell this pair are exactly the sort that usually settles their differences by having a totally uncivilised screaming match in the street

Why would you say that? I'm really not trying to be goady here I'm just interested.

What has Colleen in particular done to give you that opinion of her?

@sashagabadon

Isn’t this the same tactic Prince William used to use to see if he could trust his friends or not. Tell unique stories to people and see which ones ended up in the news of the world. Although he didn’t then take to Twitter to publically accuse anyone afterwards. Presumably just quietly removed them from his social circle which is probably what Colleen should have done.

The problem with that was certain newspapers were bugging his mobile so it was they who were leaking information, not the friends.

The same thing happened with Elle Mcpherson's PA - she was sacked but it was later proved that it was the press.

Coleen*

Sorry, we may as well get the names right. :o

Then Vardy had better hope she wins and gets awarded more than Rooney was prepared to offer in settlement. If I understand it correctly, if Rooney makes an offer that Vardy refuses, Vardy will be liable for court costs if she wins the case but the damages offered are equal to or less than the offer she rejected. And libel case court costs are frequently higher than damages awarded.

This Secret Wag column from October 2019, just after Rooney made the accusation, is interesting. It certainly implies that Vardy isn't the source but that could be a bluff. www.thesun.co.uk/sport/10123679/secret-wag-coleen-rooney-becky-vardy/

What has Colleen in particular done to give you that opinion of her?

You mean apart from marrying a total neanderthal, and conducting concerted dirty linen exercises, gossip, and mindless and inane tit-for-tat drivel over public social media?

Surely the very fact that this of all things, is being dragged through the courts right now speaks volumes about those involved?

Like I said, if I was being kind I'd blame this entirely on pecuniary lawyers, but somehow I can't shake the feeling that people like this just can't help themselves but act like walking, talking public cringefests, and would be happily slinging it out in a public street or pub car park if they weren't doing it via a court.

Fair enough @XDownwiththissortofthingX

But in what ways (apart from this situation) has she been " conducting concerted dirty linen exercises, gossip, and mindless and inane tit-for-tat drivel over public social media? " over the years?

Bluntness has identified the interesting points.
Also
RV has said she doesn't need the money - sure. But what if she shared some snippets of gossip with a friendly Sun journalist thinking little of it. She maybe had a friendly link with one of them.. She wanted some publicity for her projects and gave a bit back in return ( info). She didn't think anything of it at the time, nor did the newspaper. Probably it happens a lot. ( You can see some thing about the hierarchy - the more popular wags: household names and lesser-known wags know that gossip about the top set will be what the tabloids want,,).
The journalists involved might not just be protecting their sources but feeling sorry for whoever gave them the stories that it has come to this. Another reason for their silence on their sources might be that if they speak out and say it wasn't RV, people might say " Well who is it then? You obviously know if you know it wasn't her." Better to keep quiet. But it could be info was passed to The Sun from a friend of a friend of a friend, so The Sun can't speak out because it isn't beyond reasonable doubt in their understanding whether the info emanated from RV originally.

To print the stories, the newspaper must have trusted the source. In a film, it would be the newspaper journos themselves who told CR - doing so in order to get a bigger story and told her how to put in place the sting. It's odd, because certainly one of those three stories about the flood is one the newspaper could have tried to check out, re builders in the area or general nosiness - I presume paps follow W and CR. The return to TV would have been a story you could check out through TV sources. Not sure I'd believe a friend of CR to get that sort of info right. Not sure any celebs tell their friends they are going to go on TV shows until it's definitely in the bag. Would have thought a newspaper would have corroborated a story like that.
In a fictional film, a newspaper would have been hacking CR account and hence trusting the source.

@JeNeComprendsPas

I wonder if any of CRs legal team get Popbitch?

If the case does make it to trial, things are likely to get a little messy – and Vardy is going to want to hope that she doesn't get asked too many questions about her prior relationship with the Sun. If they ask her under oath about who it was that kept tipping the paps off to her husband's whereabouts when they would go out on the town together, she might find it hard to convince anyone that her hands are entirely clean...

The problem for Coleen is that she has made a very specific accusation - that RV leaked three stories that Coleen had rigged up on Instagram.

Her "proof" that "RV's account" was behind all the previous leaks rests on her having made those three leaks.

Coleen really hasn't been as clever as the thinks she has. Well, thought she had, as she is now learning a lot about libel law, the hard way!

@Diverseopinions I see what you mean, but I really don't think that tabloids bother with that level of fact-checking when it comes to a quick celeb story.

They'd rather print some quick clickbait than both with loads of fact-checking. They legal stuff themselves, but generally only for the bigger stories. Not everything gets legalled, and certainly not some inconsequential stuff about a celeb's cellar flooding.

*bother

I think at the time the Sun said it had contacted Rooney's office to get a response to the stories but never had an answer. A basement flooding wouldn't be a libellous story even if it's untrue, so that was probably safe to print. Gender selection in Oz is a bit dodgier but if Rooney hasn't taken action on that one yet, I don't think she can now; I think you need to file within 12 months of the publication. If she posted it as a story on her own social media, maybe that constitutes a defence; if she says it, why would anyone think it wasn't true?

I think at the time the Sun said it had contacted Rooney's office to get a response to the stories but never had an answer

And now we know why! So Coleen has also manipulated the press, allowing stories she knew were false to be printed, all in aid of her little "sting". Which is now costing her thousands and thousands of pounds, as well as some of her own reputation. Well done Coleen!

RV doesn’t seem too worried. She is driving around in a brand new car. (Metallic blue, if anyone is interested).

Meanwhile, Marcus Rashford is doing some actual good in the world....

I think some of these gossip columns are not supposed to be taken seriously and treated like the pure truth. A news report is different, but the journos and lawyers possibly don't go over info for these fun and frivolous columns with a fine checking comb.

The sun knows, and they paid the person, all they have said is they do not comment on sources.

They are daft, but not that daft, you can’t just phone up and give them random made up shit and they print it. Yes they tried to confirm with the Rooneys, but this doesn’t mean they had no idea who providing the info.

The sun absolutely knows who it was.

The tone of some of these gossip columns is more "A little bird said......believe it if you like, don't if you don't want to ."

@Diverseopinions

The tone of some of these gossip columns is more "A little bird said......believe it if you like, don't if you don't want to ."

So?

Re. Prince William, i think it was both, testing friends leaking stories he had told them in private not in the phone (and I would think most friends are/ were loyal) AND the press hacking his phone. That came out as press printed a story about Prince William going to see the doctor about his knee. Except he didn’t and it was just advice from his advisors left on his voicemail. So how did the press know about his sore knee? I think it was this press slip up that helped to blow apart the whole time phone hacking story (at first they thought it was just the royal correspondent then later realised it was endemic and targeting everyone ( celebs and “real” people alike including unbelievably milky downer)

I thin