Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy will take their ‘Wagatha Christie’ war to the high court after failing to settle the libel row at a mediation today – with the loser facing a £1.6million legal bill.
Queen’s Bench Master Eastman told lawyers for the two women that a full trial could take place before next April. It is expected to last around seven days.
Rebekah, 38, launched her high-stakes High Court libel action after Coleen, 34, accused her in an October 2019 Instagram post of being the source of leaks to the media on stories about her.
Coleen Rooney covered up in a black hooded zip-up jacket while shopping for food at her local Waitrose supermarket this morning
Sara Mansoori, representing Rebekah, told the court: ‘The Claimant’s intention, that having put on record her respected case, was to resolve this at mediation. The matter has not been resolved.’
She added: ‘The parties were focused on mediation and until that mediation took place, it was not appropriate to take any further steps in the case.’
The court was also told that Rebekah’s lawyers intend to make an application to ‘strike out’ parts of Coleen’s defence that she was not the source of the leaks or make an application for summary judgment, where parts of her case would not be settled after a full trial.
Master Eastman ordered them to make their application by the end of this month so that a final decision can be made on what evidence will be heard at the full trial.
Much of the discussion of today’s hearing focused on the costs of the case, which amount to £1.6 million for both parties according to documents submitted to the court.
Rebekah’s lawyers estimate their costs at the end of a trial would be nearly £1.1m, with bills of more than £400,000 already incurred.
John Samson, representing Coleen told the Master Eastman: ‘We reject the Claimant’s budget and ask them (Rebekah’s legal team) to review it. It’s grotesque. The sums are so huge, the duplication of effort is so massive that you are looking at a situation where to date, the Claimant’s budget is double that of the defendants.
‘Things are getting well out of hand. It would be useful for you to take a view on that.’
Master Eastman described the costs as ‘extraordinarily large’ adding that for financial reasons ‘it would be in everybody’s best interests to settle the case.’
Last month, the two women met face-to-face for two rounds of mediation which were overseen by a former lawyer.
MailOnline revealed Coleen’s 11th-hour peace offer to Rebekah, suggesting that if Rebekah, 39, accepted her Instagram account was the source of leaked stories to the press, then Coleen would accept her assurances that she personally knew nothing about the leaks.
The figures put into court by lawyers acting for the warring parties underline the high stakes in the battle of the wags – as well as highlighting the eye-watering fees charged by defamation lawyers.
Rebekah’s lawyers estimate their costs at the end of a trial would be nearly £1.1m, with bills of more than £400,000 already incurred.
Rebekah, 38, (seen in a recent Instagram post)launched her high-stakes High Court libel action after Coleen, 34 accused her in an October 2019 Instagram post of being the source of leaks to the media on stories about her
Coleen’s camp have assessed their costs at just over £500,000 in total, with around £200,000 incurred already.
Whichever side lost in the event of a trial would most likely have to meet the other’s costs as well as their own. Adding in any damages could well take the loser’s bill to over £2 million.
Last month, MailOnline revealed Coleen’s 11th-hour peace offer to Rebekah, suggesting that if Rebekah, 39, accepted her Instagram account was the source of leaked stories to the press, then Coleen would accept her assurances that she personally knew nothing about the leaks.
Sources have repeatedly indicated that Coleen, 34 – married to footballer Wayne Rooney – has always found the cost of litigation ‘grotesque’ in the current circumstances, believing the money could be better spent elsewhere.
That is why she has repeatedly offered to settle – previously offering to ‘drop hands’ – a lawyers’ term meaning both sides pay their own legal costs – with each of the footballers’ wives also donating to charity.
It is understood that the latest offer was made in correspondence from Coleen’s lawyers to the Vardy side before a failed mediation hearing between the two parties earlier this month.
Former Dancing On Ice contestant Rebekah, who is married to footballer Jamie Vardy, has rejected all Coleen’s offers, meaning that the libel action she brought against Coleen looks set to go to a full court hearing.
Coleen was seen stepping out in Alderley Edge in Cheshire prior to today’s court hearing
Coleen’s side lost an intermediary ‘meanings hearing’ in November.
At that round of the case, the dispute was over the wording of Coleen’s social media post, which she put up for her 1.2 million Twitter followers and 885,000 Instagram followers to see last year.
Rooney named the culprit of the leaks as ‘Rebekah Vardy’s account’, and her lawyers argued that she hadn’t implied Rebekah herself was guilty – and instead the culprit could have been anyone with access to her Instagram account.
But Judge Mark Warby ruled against this, saying the post looked as though it was putting the blame solely on Vardy.
He ruled that Coleen’s post ‘clearly identified’ Rebekah as being ‘guilty of the serious and consistent breach of trust’.
The judge said an ordinary reader would not take the word ‘account’ to ‘indicate that she remains in doubt about who the wrongdoer was’.
Under the law of libel, that means the onus was now on Coleen’s side to prove that not only did the posts come from Rebekah’s account, but also that she was responsible.
Rebekah launched her £1 million High Court libel action after Coleen accused her in an October 2019 Instagram post of being the source of leaks to the media.
The long-running feud between the high-profile WAGS erupted after Coleen revealed that she had set a trap to see who was responsible for the leaks, which earned her the nickname ‘Wagatha Christie’.
Vardy and Rooney celebrate England’s win against Wales at Stade Bollaert-Delelis in France
Soon after, Rebekah took to social media to deny being the leaker after Coleen’s post went viral.
Last February, Rebekah broke down on ITV’s Loose Women, saying the feud was ‘one of the worst things I had to deal with apart from being abused when I was younger’.
Last June, it emerged that Rebekah had launched a case to sue Coleen for £1 million.
In October 2020, Coleen ‘doubled down’ by filing her 55-page defence and sharing images of the Instagram posts she alleged Rebekah leaked.
The following month, Rebekah won the first round of her High Court libel battle at the ‘meanings hearing’
Earlier this month, the pair attended a court-ordered mediation session on Zoom, their first meeting for years.
Zoom proceedings began with both sides reading out a statement and then breaking off into separate virtual rooms as the mediator spoke to them and their legal representatives independently.
Former columnist Coleen reportedly tried to reach out to brunette Rebekah after another round of failed talks to avoid a costly legal battle.
However, it’s thought that she saw the mediation as a ‘waste of time’ as TV star Becky continues to demand she apologise for her fierce accusation.