Victory for Rebekah Vardy in latest stage of libel battle against Coleen Rooney

Rebekah Vardy has scored a win in the latest stage of her libel battle against fellow footballer’s wife Coleen Rooney.

Ms Rooney had parts of her defence thrown out by a judge on Wednesday.

The women are embroiled in a libel case centred around Ms Rooney, the wife of ex-footballer and Derby County manager Wayne Rooney, accusing Ms Vardy of leaking “false stories” about her private life to the press.

The 35-year-old made the accusations in a social media post in October 2019 in which she explained a months-long “sting operation” which saw her dubbed “Wagatha Christie”.

Ms Vardy, who is married to Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, denies the accusations and is suing Ms Rooney for libel.

In a ruling on Wednesday, a judge dismissed a claim by Ms Rooney that her fellow footballer’s wife showed “publicity seeking behaviour” when sitting behind Ms Rooney in someone else’s seat at the 2016 Euros.

Ms Justice Steyn found that even assuming the allegation was true, it would still not help Ms Rooney’s case.

“The fact that a person seeks media coverage of their own attendance at a football match does not make it more probable that they would disclose private information about another person to the press,” she said.

She also agreed to strike out the claim Ms Vardy was leaking information about the libel case to The Sun and that Ms Vardy had written a statement for the press regulator after a complaint was made about the newspaper.

But the judge also decided to keep some of the other aspects of Ms Rooney’s defence.

At a hearing in June, Ms Vardy’s lawyers asked the High Court to throw out parts of Ms Rooney’s defence as they were “irrelevant or peripheral” to the case.

This included allegations of Ms Vardy’s close relationship with The Sun and her alleged authorship of “The Secret Wag” column – which the judge refused to strike out on Wednesday.

“While these paragraphs do not go to the core issues, the allegation that the claimant had, or was the primary source for, a gossip column about professional footballers and their partners in The Sun is logically probative similar fact evidence,” Ms Justice Steyn.

Ms Vardy denies being behind “The Secret Wag” column in The Sun.

A legal expert called the latest verdict a “good result” for Ms Rooney.

“Last year, a judge ruled she had to prove Rebekah Vardy herself was behind the leaks,” Matthew Dando, partner at Wiggin LLP, said. “Today, the judge has given permission for Rooney to rely on many if not all of the important parts of her defence.”

In October 2019, Ms Rooney claimed she had traced fake stories about her – based on Instagram posts – that had appeared in The Sun to Ms Vardy’s account.

“I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person has viewed them,” she said in a widely-shared social media post.

“It’s……… Rebekah Vardy’s account.”

Additional reporting by Press Association