‘I’d rather look like something out of Lord of the Rings than a POTATO’: Rebekah Vardy compares court sketches of her with ones of Wayne Rooney from Wagatha Christie trial
- Rebekah Vardy branded Wayne Rooney as looking like a ‘hot potato’ in court sketches during the trial in May
- The 40-year-old herself was compared to ‘something out of Lord of the Rings’ by cruel online commentators
- In an interview the mother-of-five hit out at Wayne for ‘calling Jamie a liar’ during the Wagatha Christie case
- A judge ruled that Coleen Rooney hadn’t libeled Rebekah when she accused her of leaking stories to the Sun
Rebekah Vardy extraordinarily branded Wayne Rooney as looking like a ‘hot potato’ in his court sketch from the Wagatha Christie trial.
The 40-year-old has revealed she gave the unedifying nickname to the former England striker after online commentators said she looked like ‘something from Lord of the Rings’ in court sketches of herself during the six-day court case.
The mother-of-five, who says she has been left with PTSD following the high-profile legal battle, has also claimed her husband Jamie was targeted by trolls who sent him death threats during the feud.
These included messages telling him to die and others warning him to ‘watch out’ as people were after him.
The mother-of-five has continued to speak out after the explosive libel trial brought on when Coleen Rooney accused her of leaking stories about her personal life.
Last week the judge in the trial, Mrs Justice Steyn, found Coleen had not libeled her by making the claim and tore apart Rebekah’s witness testimony, saying ‘significant’ parts of her evidence were ‘not credible’.
Speaking in an interview with the Sun, the same paper Coleen accused her of leaking stories to, Rebekah took aim once more at the Rooneys.
An artists impression of Wayne Rooney giving evidence during the Wagatha Christie libel trial. The former England footballer was branded as looking like a ‘hot potato’ by Rebekah Vardy
Rebekah Vardy made the comment after online commentators said she looked like ‘something out of Lord of the Rings’ in a court sketch of herself. Pictured is an artists impression of her in the witness box during the trial
In an interview with the Sun, Rebekah also claimed her husband Jamie had been subjected to death threats as a result of the trial
Rebekah said Coleen’s husband Wayne looked like a ‘hot potato’ in a court sketch after a commenter said she looked like ‘something out of Lord of the Rings’ in a depiction of herself.
She says in response she snapped: ‘I’d rather look like something out of Lord of the Rings than a hot potato.’
She also defended her husband, Leicester City footballer Jamie, who she described as her ‘rock’ and hit out at Wayne for his evidence in the witness box.
When called into the trial, the then-Derby County manager had claimed he talked to Jamie during the 2016 Euros on behalf of England manager Roy Hodgson.
He told the court he had spoken to his England teammate to ‘calm down’ Rebekah, after complaints she was ‘causing problems and distractions’ for the team during the tournament.
After this Jamie, who did not give evidence in court, made a statement outside the High Court accusing Wayne of talking ‘nonsense’ and said that conversation had never taken place.
Rebekah, pictured here with Jamie outside the High Court in May, said her husband had been her ‘rock’ before, during and after the six-day court case
Mrs Vardy said that she withdrew from the public gaze due to the stress she felt when being abused both in the street and online
Rebekah said Wayne had ‘essentially called my husband a liar’ while giving evidence in the trial. Pictured are Wayne and Coleen Rooney leaving the High Court in May
Rebekah says her husband had not testified in the trial because ‘I didn’t ask him to’ and ‘you can’t give evidence unless you give a witness statement’.
She added: ‘Wayne essentially called my husband a liar, so that’s why he had to give a statement afterwards.’
In the interview she added that he husband had been targeted by ‘trolls’ who sent him death threats.
The Sun reports that three people have been arrested by police looking into threatening messages sent to him.
Among the messages were threats saying: ‘Jamie better watch out — the cocky c*** people are after him, so beware.’
It added another made reference to Rebekah’s appearance on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! by saying: ‘You should’ve gone to the jungle and died of a snake bite instead.’
She told the paper her husband had been ‘resilient’ but hit out at people for abusing her family during the course of the feud.
‘It doesn’t matter what people’s opinions are about me, they shouldn’t be attacking my husband or children,’ she said.
‘I draw the line when you subject them to vicious, disgusting hatred, and abuse my husband.
‘This has nothing to do with him. It was these threats that got my attention and it is hurtful.’
The post that accused Rebekah Vardy’s social media account of leaking stories. It sparked a £3million legal battle that Mrs Rooney has won after the judge agreed it was ‘substantially true’ and therefore not libellous
The High Court Wagatha Christie judgment that damned Rebekah Vardy
‘Significant’ parts of Vardy’s evidence ‘not credible’
Mrs Justice Steyn has found that Rebekah Vardy’s evidence in the trial was ‘manifestly inconsistent’ with other evidence on ‘many occasions’.
The judge said: ‘I find that it is, unfortunately, necessary to treat Mrs Vardy’s evidence with very considerable caution.
‘There were many occasions when her evidence was manifestly inconsistent… and others where she was evasive.’
Mrs Justice Steyn continued: ‘Mrs Vardy was generally unwilling to make factual concessions, however implausible her evidence. This inevitably affects my overall view of her credibility, although I have borne in mind that untruthful evidence may be given to mask guilt or to fortify innocence.’
On the ‘Davy Jones’ incident that left Vardy’s agent’s phone at the bottom of the North Sea
Mrs Justice Steyn said ‘In my judgement, it is likely that Ms Vardy deliberately deleted her WhatsApp chat with Ms Watt, and that Ms Watt deliberately dropped her phone in the sea.’
Rebekah Vardy’s agent and friend said her phone fell into the North Sea while she was filming the Scottish coastline in August 2021.
Mrs Justice Steyn has said the likelihood that the loss of Caroline Watt’s phone was accidental was ‘slim’ and that it was ‘likely’ she deliberately dropped her phone into the sea.
In her judgement, the judge said that on August 4 2021, an order was made for Ms Watt’s phone to be inspected.
She said: ‘The timing is striking…the likelihood that the loss Ms Watt describes was accidental is slim.’
On her agent’s ‘breakdown’
Mrs Justice Steyn said that Rebekah Vardy chose not to call her agent Caroline Watt to give evidence partly because she knew her evidence ‘would be shown to be untrue’.
On whether Vardy leaked to The Sun
The Court found that the Mrs Vardy, ‘together with Ms Watt’, ‘was party to the disclosure to The Sun’.
The judge said: ‘The Court considered it likely that Ms Watt undertook the direct act, in relation to each post, of passing the information to a journalist at The Sun, but found that the Claimant [Mrs Vardy] knew of, condoned and was actively engaged in this process’.
Earlier this week Rebekah took another swipe at the libel trial’s judge, by saying she didn’t feel she had understood the case.
Speaking to TalkTV’s Kate McCann, the mother-of-five said she isolated herself from the public following Coleen’s Instagram post and felt ‘as though she ‘didn’t even want to be here anymore’.
She said that she withdrew from the public gaze due to the stress she felt when being abused both in the street and online.
This stress, she was told by her doctor, could have sent her into premature labour.
‘I was trying to be mum to the four children that were here and to protect my baby as well,’ she said.
‘There was a really high probably I was going to go into preterm labour.
‘It was the worst feeling,’ she added.
Rebekah added: ‘I just wanted normality to resume. I felt for the kids, the ones that were innocent in this.
‘They’re too young to understand how any of this happened. You’ve got to focus on your family and help your kids.’
She added: ‘The kids were driven to school in cars with bin liners on the windows because of the press intrusion, it just went crazy. I was just a normal mum and now I’m a mum being called all sorts of things.’
Reflecting on the trial, she said: ‘Do I feel let down? I feel let down by the legal system.
‘I had a judge that didn’t really know the case, and read what was said in the media.’
She told The Sun in an interview: ‘I am extremely sad and disappointed at the decision that the judge has reached.
‘It is not the result that I had expected, nor believe was just. I brought this action to vindicate my reputation and am devastated by the judge’s finding.’
Mrs Vardy was told by a High Court judge that her evidence was ‘evasive and implausible; and was accused of deliberately deleting WhatsApp messages central to the case.
In her ruling, the judge said it was ‘likely’ that Mrs Vardy’s agent at the time, Caroline Watt, ‘undertook the direct act’ of passing the information to The Sun.
But she added: ‘Nonetheless, the evidence … clearly shows, in my view, that Mrs Vardy knew of and condoned this behaviour, actively engaging in it by 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.
The judge added: ‘In my judgment, the conclusions that I have reached as to the extent to which the claimant engaged in disclosing to The Sun information to which she only had access as a permitted follower of an Instagram account which she knew, and Mrs Rooney repeatedly asserted, was private, suffice to show the single meaning is substantially true.’
The bombshell verdict from Court 13 of the High Court was handed down remotely online last week by Mrs Justice Steyn just over two months after the trial in May.
Mrs Vardy’s failed libel suit has been branded the most ill-advised in history.
However she still insists she was not the person who leaked the stories about Mrs Rooney to the media.
During the interview with Ms McCann, Mrs Vardy repeatedly said that she did not leak the information to the press.
Mrs Vardy said that she feels let down by the legal system. Pictured arriving at the Royal Courts of Justice on the fourth day of the high-profile trial against Coleen Rooney
She recounted the first time that the wives spoke, after Mrs Rooney posted the accusation online.
Mrs Vardy said she asked Mrs Rooney what the post was about.
‘You know what this is’, Mrs Vardy said she was told in reply.
‘I really didn’t know why she’d say that or where it had come from.
‘I was absolutely devastated because I didn’t do it.’
‘I went into court telling the truth. There’s some things I’m not proud of, but I never leaked stories about Coleen Rooney.’
Mrs Rooney believes ‘everything that needed saying was said’ in the judge’s ruling that humiliated Mrs Vardy last week and left her with a £3million legal bill, in what has been branded one of the worst own goals in British legal history.
Coleen also dismissed Rebekah’s suggestion she was ‘milking it’ by wearing a moon boot to court by sharing a shocking X-ray of her foot break sustained after a fall in March. The picture showed her little toe had been shattered.
Injury: Coleen, 36, was wearing a surgical boot after suffering a fall back in March, and shared an X-ray image of her broken foot via Twitter on Wednesday
Recovery: Coleen Rooney has hit back at WAG rival Rebekah Vardy’s claims she was ‘milking’ her foot injury during their explosive court showdown
The 36-year-old, who wore the protective footwear every day during her High Court libel battle with Rebekah, broke her little toe following a fall in March at the Rooneys’ £20million mansion in Cheshire where the couple live with their four sons.
Mrs Rooney was said by friends to ‘be in quite a lot of pain’ and initially had to use crutches.
Her husband, former Manchester United and England striker Wayne, broke his metatarsal just weeks before the 2006 World Cup in Germany but he managed to play in the tournament.
A source said: ‘It was handy for Coleen, Wayne knows all about foot injuries.’
Rebekah now faces a legal bill that could total £3million after the case which left her reputation in tatters.
MailOnline can reveal that the case will now return to the High Court on September 12 for a costs hearing – at which trial judge Mrs Justice Steyn is likely to take a dim view at being told by Rebekah following the verdict that she ‘got it wrong’ and felt she was ‘let down by the legal system’.
Costs hearings are convened to work out exactly how big a share of the legal bill the losing party will be saddled with – and whether the costs incurred are reasonable.
The judge who delivered the SCATHING ruling, Mrs Justice Steyn
Karen Margaret Steyn QC is sworn in as a Justice of the High Court in 2019
In her long legal career she has been engaged in such weighty cases as Guantanamo Bay prisoners, Saudi arms deals – and claims Priti Patel bullied civil servants.
Mrs Justice Steyn found herself in the full glare of the media spotlight for an altogether different reason, when she presided over the Wagatha Christie libel trial.
She was appointed in 2019 and sits in the Queen’s Bench Division – the part of the High Court which deals with defamation, personal injury and breach of contract claims.
She became a dame in the same year.
She was the only one of that year’s High Court intake not to have attended Oxbridge.
Described as ‘formidable and exceptionally intelligent’, she is the daughter of former Law Lord, Lord Steyn.
As well as overseeing the ‘Wagatha Christie’ claim, other prominent cases she has heard include Arron Banks’ libel claim against journalist Carole Cadwalladr and the FDA union’s unsuccessful legal challenge over Boris Johnson’s decision to support Priti Patel following bullying accusations.
The daughter of former Law Lord Lord Steyn, Mrs Justice Steyn covered a variety of cases as a barrister, including a case over the expansion of Heathrow airport.
Those who attended preliminary hearings saw hints of frustration in Dame Karen, possibly mirroring a wider disbelief that Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy are spending millions over their dispute.
Dame Karen was born in South Africa but grew up in Britain where she attended Tonbridge Grammar School in Kent and Liverpool University.
She previously said: ‘Before I started my career I certainly had a perception of barristers as all fitting a particular mould, one that I knew I did not fit, and it took a little while for me to appreciate that there is no mould.’
Those who have attended preliminary hearings have seen hints of frustration in Dame Karen, possibly mirroring a wider disbelief that Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy are spending millions over their dispute
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