Rebekah Vardy Walks Out Of Court 30 Minutes Into Final Day Of Trial

Rebekah Vardy left the courtroom just half an hour into the hearing on the final day of the 'Wagatha Christie' trial.

Coleen and Wayne Rooney are not in attendance today due to a 'long-standing travel arrangement', the couple's barrister told the High Court.

Less than an hour into today's proceedings (19 May), Vardy rushed out of the courtroom with her laptop in hand.

The 40-year-old returned to the courtroom 49 minutes later and sat back in front of her lawyers.

The bitter row broke out between the two women after Rooney accused Vardy of leaking stories about her to the press.

In a post to her Instagram account, Rooney claimed that she had been suspicious of someone selling stories about her for some time. 

As a result, she began planting fake news stories, sharing them to her Instagram account, which she claims Vardy was sharing.

Vardy then launched a defamation case against the wife of the former England captain.

Her legal team claim that she had no idea news stories about Rooney were being leaked and that she had nothing to do with it.

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Hugh Tomlinson QC, representing Vardy, told the court previously: "The fact someone has an account doesn’t mean they are the only person who accessed it. Mrs Rooney was then dubbed 'Wagatha Christie'. Something that she appears to have revelled in.

"Mrs Vardy does not actually know what happened, she doesn't know how this information got into the press, all she knows is what she did and she knows it wasn't her."

The pair's representatives are in court today to offer their closing arguments.

David Sherborne, for Coleen Rooney, said his client "was brought here by Mrs (Rebekah) Vardy because of the reveal post".

He explained: "She (Mrs Rooney) herself said so much more of it had been made than she expected, both at the time and since, and the trolling of Mrs Vardy was vile."

Discussing the viral social media post, he added: "It is what she believed at the time… and it is what she believes even more so now that we have got to the end of the case.

"She finds herself at the end of a seven-day libel trial, and for what?"

Mr Sherborne also claimed there had been a "targeted deletion" of messages between Vardy and Caroline Watt between 15 October, 2019 and 25 July, 2020.

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He later alleged there had been a "clear and concerted effort on the part of Mrs Vardy to conceal relevant and incriminating evidence not just from us but from the court".

Mr Sherborne claimed, however, that this could not be compared to the loss of some data by Rooney in the case.

The court previously heard that Rooney had posted a public tweet saying it was "sad" someone who followed her was "betraying" her after an article about her car being damaged appeared in The Sun.

While purportedly discussing this tweet in a private WhatsApp conversation, Caroline Watt told Rebekah Vardy “It wasn’t someone she trusted. It was me”, in a message accompanied by a laughing face emoji.

Addressing this in his closing speech on Thursday, David Sherborne said: “Mrs Vardy’s suggestion that she was unaware of Ms Watt leaking information from Mrs Rooney’s Instagram account is completely unsustainable in the face of Ms Watt’s message 'it was me'.