Rebekah Vardy's team racked up 'unreasonable and disproportionate' legal bills in Wagatha Christie case, Coleen Rooney's lawyers claim as the celebrity row returns to court
The high profile Wagatha Christie case has returned to court as Coleen Rooney accuses Rebekah Vardy of running up an 'unreasonable' £325,000 legal bill.
Mrs Vardy, 42, lost her £3million libel claim against Mrs Rooney, 38, in a bombshell ruling in July 2022.
In an order from October the same year, the judge ruled that Mrs Vardy, the wife of footballer Jamie Vardy, should pay 90 per cent of Mrs Rooney's costs, with an initial £800,000 then ordered to be paid.
The case returned to court today, nearly two years since the original hearing, as Mrs Rooney challenges parts of Mrs Vardy's £325,000 bill, of which she will have to pay 20 per cent.
Mrs Vardy's was left with a mammoth legal bill and her reputation in tatters when a High Court judge dismissed her evidence in the original trial as 'evasive or implausible' and accused her of deliberately deleting WhatsApp messages central to the case.
Coleen Rooney has accused Rebekah Vardy of running up an 'unreasonable' £325,000 legal bill during the Wagatha Christie case. She will have to pay around 20 percent of the costs
Rebekah Vardy's lawyers are opposing the bid to reduce the costs bill with it said there was 'barely a day' when her lawyers were not working at that time
Mrs Vardy had sued over an accusation she had leaked details of Mrs Rooney's private life to the press. It came after Mrs Rooney had staged an elaborate sting operation to find out who was passing on stories about her private life to The Sun.
The court case was so intense Mrs Vardy's leading barrister ended up working on Christmas Day.
The trial resulted in a Disney+ documentary and was turned into a Channel 4 drama starring Michael Sheen as Mrs Rooney's barrister, David Sherborne.
Mrs Rooney's costs are expected to be considered at a hearing in October and neither woman appeared at the High Court today for the first hearing.
Robin Dunne, for Mrs Rooney, said that Mrs Vardy's team had accrued 'unreasonable and disproportionate' costs before the trial.
Some of the costs related to bids made at a hearing in February 2022 for further documents and information from both sides, as well as Mrs Rooney's bid to have legal action against Mrs Vardy's former agent heard alongside the libel claim.
Mrs Rooney's lawyers previously claimed that Mrs Vardy leaked information to The Sun either directly or through her agent Caroline Watt 'acting on her instruction or with her knowing approval'.
Her bid was denied, with Ms Watt's legal bill of £65,000 previously paid by Mrs Rooney.
Mr Dunne said they were 'significant applications', adding that 'we fully accept there needed to be work done', but that Mrs Vardy's bill for around eight weeks worth of work was 'disproportionate'.
Mrs Rooney (pictured, left, at the screening of Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story in Liverpool in October 2023), the wife of former Manchester United star Wayne Rooney, is believed to have spent more than £2million on the case
Rebekah, pictured with Jamie Vardy leaving court, began a libel action against Coleen, arguing that the accusation over her Instagram account was false
The post that accused Rebekah Vardy's social media account of leaking stories. It sparked a £3million legal battle that Mrs Rooney won after the judge agreed it was 'substantially true' and therefore not libellous
Mrs Vardy's lawyers are opposing the bid to reduce the costs bill.
Jamie Carpenter KC, for Mrs Vardy, said there was 'barely a day' when her lawyers were not working at that time.
The specialist costs court in London heard that Mrs Vardy's trial barrister, Hugh Tomlinson KC, had 'worked on the case on Christmas Day while he was on holiday'.
Mr Carpenter said that many of the lawyers worked Boxing Day and the bank holidays around Christmas on Mrs Vardy's case.
He continued: 'No one was costs building.
'This was work that absolutely had to be done and it was a huge amount of work.'
The hearing before Senior Costs Judge Andrew Gordon-Saker is due to conclude on Wednesday.
In the viral social media post in October 2019 at the heart of the libel claim, Mrs Rooney said she had carried out a months-long 'sting operation' and accused Mrs Vardy of leaking information about her private life to the press.
Mrs Rooney publicly claimed Mrs Vardy's account was the source behind three stories in The Sun newspaper featuring fake details she had posted on her private Instagram profile - featuring her travelling to Mexico for a 'gender selection' procedure, her planning to return to TV, and the basement flooding at her home.
Following the high-profile trial, Mrs Justice Steyn ruled in Mrs Rooney's favour, finding it was 'likely' that Ms Watt had passed information to The Sun and that she 'knew of and condoned this behaviour'.
The judge added that Mrs Vardy had 'actively' engaged, 'directing Ms Watt to the private Instagram account, sending her screenshots of Mrs Rooney's posts, drawing attention to items of potential interest to the press, and answering additional queries raised by the press via Ms Watt'.