Wagatha Christie update

In the latest round of the "Wagatha Christie" dispute, the High Court has been told Rebekah Vardy tried to sell a drink driving story to a newspaper about one of her husband's former teammates.

Coleen Rooney publicly accused 40-year-old Mrs Vardy of leaking "false stories" about her to the media after carrying out a "sting operation" that lasted months. Mrs Vardy, who is married to Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, denies the accusations and is suing Mrs Rooney for libel.

In the latest development in the case, WhatsApp messages from Mrs Vardy emerged in a judgment. The court was told that on 8 April 2019, Mrs Vardy sent a WhatsApp message to Caroline Watt, her agent, saying: "Story…Danny Drinkwater arrested x." Drinkwater admitted drink-driving and was banned for 20 months in May 2019. He is a former England and Leicester teammate of Jamie Vardy.

Mrs Vardy told Ms Watt that Drinkwater had "crashed his car drunk with two girls in it.... both in hospital, one with broken ribs". Ms Watt replied: "F---", asking, "when?" Mrs Vardy told her agent that it happened last night, and he had "just been let out of the cells" and added, "I want paying for this x." Documents also show Mrs Vardy claiming, "he's in big, big trouble" and that she thought it was "at least £100k worth of damage".

At a hearing on April 13, the High Court heard Ms Watt had withdrawn her written evidence, and that owing to medical reasons she could not give oral evidence at next month's trial. The court also heard that Ms Watt failed to hand over a mobile phone as evidence, claiming that her device was accidentally "dropped into the North Sea".

Ms Watt said the WhatsApp messages and the exchanges that were being hunted for would already have been wiped as she regularly deletes messages. Additionally, David Sherborne, representing 36-year-old Mrs Rooney, claimed they had been unable to access crucial information on a mobile phone belonging to Mrs Vardy because the password had been lost or corrupted.

Collings Solicitors
Altrincham
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