Ok, I actually AM a libel lawyer and while it's entertaining to read people's efforts at guessing the law
, the true position is this.
Vardy is suing Colleen for libel so the burden of proof rests on Vardy to prove 3 things, that 1) words have been published 2) to third parties (ie not just said to her) and that the words are 3) defamatory of her, which means that they have caused or are likely to cause serious damage to her reputation. She has a slam dunk on all of these points.
Then the burden of proof shifts to Rooney as a defendant to see if she can make out one of the recognised defences to a libel claim. If she can, Rooney wins, if she can't Vardey wins.
Rooney has indicated that she intends to rely on the defence of truth. She has to prove, on the balance of probabilities (so basically more than 50/50) that it was indeed Vardey who was selling the fake insta stories to the press.
In practice, however, it will be as much be Vardey who has to prove that it wasn't her, ie it that her account was hacked and someone else was doing it. Because the strong inference is that the person who accesses and Insta account is the owner of that account. (I had a broadly similar case years ago where a client was falsely accused of a crime and the defendant's defence was they were guilty. We in practice had to put together a case showing that she wasn't guilty of what was alleged because we had to rebut the defendant's case that she was guilty. We won).
Vardey will need to be able to deploy fairly compelling evidence - probably forensic IT evidence (and who knows, she may have it ) that her account was hacked and was being accessed by someone else. If she can do this then she will win because it would mean that Rooney had falsely defamed her, and Rooney will have to pay damages and will be the subject of an injunction banning her from repeating the same or any similar allegations about Vardey.
I'd say the case has a reasonable chance of settling because it's pretty high stakes and whatever evidence Vardey has about the alleged hack she will have to provide to Rooney's team well in advance of any trial.
Any questions?
I will send you my bill.