Lawyer says client ‘glad it’s over’ as Rebekah Vardy faces considerable bill after high court judgment
Coleen Rooney does not want any compensation or retribution after the “Wagatha Christie” libel trial, according to her lawyer, who said she was “just glad that it’s over and that she can get on with her life”.
On Friday, Rebekah Vardy lost her libel case against Rooney after a scathing high court judgment described her as an “untrustworthy witness” who was likely to have purposely destroyed potentially vital evidence.
Vardy now faces a considerable legal bill, reported to be about £3m, after Mrs Justice Steyn concluded that she probably worked with her agent to leak stories from Rooney’s private Instagram account to the Sun.
Rooney is reportedly in “advanced talks” about a documentary series about the trial, with a potential deal with Netflix or Amazon Prime.
Rooney’s lawyer, Paul Lunt, said on Saturday that his client’s “sole aim” was to stop intrusion into her private life.
“Coleen hasn’t wanted this,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “She didn’t want any of this to happen. She doesn’t want any compensation, retribution, she’s never wanted any of that, she just wanted the intrusion that she was seeing into her private life to stop and that was her sole aim and her sole focus.
“She has no remaining objective, certainly she doesn’t have any need for compensation or demands or any of that nature. She’s just glad that it’s over and that she can get on with her life.”
Lunt, head of litigation at law firm Brabners, said they tried to settle the case but that as a defendant, Rooney, whose husband is the former England footballer Wayne, had “very limited choices”.
“You can either defend, or you can capitulate,” he added. “And Coleen was not for capitulating, but we did make every effort to see if there was some middle ground that could be found and sadly we didn’t manage to succeed on that front.”
He claimed that according to court cost budgets, the reported £3m figure for legal costs was “a gross overestimate”.
“The figures there are a matter of record, £3m is a gross overestimate and doesn’t represent those figures. I can’t speak for what Mrs Rooney has spent on the case, I can only know what I know from my side of things.”
He also said that Vardy, whose husband is the Leicester City footballer Jamie, could face “certain consequential issues” after Sun journalists were sought to be brought into the claim. But that it would be “between the Sun and Mrs Vardy to resolve”.
Asked about reports of a Netflix special, Lunt said he had had many media approaches, adding: “If they’re all telling me the truth there are a lot of documentaries being made.” But he said he had “certainly not engaged with any of them and it would be news to me if Coleen has engaged with any of them”.
On Friday, Rooney welcomed her victory but said she “never believed it should have gone to court”.
It followed a three-year battle with Vardy after Rooney carried out a “sting” operation to find out who was leaking stories about her. After she posted the words “It’s……… Rebekah Vardy’s account” on Instagram, she was sued for libel by Vardy, who denied passing information to the Sun.
