WAGatha Christie: Rebekah Vardy wins first legal battle against Coleen Rooney

File photos of Coleen Rooney (left) who has accused Rebekah Vardy (right) of selling stories from her private Instagram account to the tabloids. Photo / Getty Images

Rebekah Vardy has won the first stage of her legal battle against Coleen Rooney.

The 37-year-old star became embroiled in a huge public scandal when Rooney took to Instagram in October last year and accused her of leaking stories to the media about her.

In the infamous post, 34-year-old Rooney said she posted a string of false stories to Instagram with restricted access to see if they appeared in the media - which she claims they did - and accused "Rebekah Vardy's account" of being the only one which viewed the posts.

Vardy denied the allegations, and claimed several people had access to her account.
This week, legal teams for the pair headed to court to allow a judge to decide the "natural and ordinary" meaning of Rooney's Instagram post and set down the parameters for the trial, with Vardy's camp arguing the Instagram post directly "pointed the finger" at Vardy herself, whilst Rooney's team claimed the star only ever blamed her account.

And on Friday, Mr Justice Warby ruled in favour of Vardy, as he agreed that the post - which was viewed by millions of people - directly blamed Vardy for selling the stories.

The court ruling now means that Rooney must prove that Vardy herself was responsible for the allegations against her account if she is to defend the libel case brought against her.

However, the pair's lawyers have agreed to meet for one final attempt to resolve the case outside of court, with a stay in place until February 8.

During their court hearing this week - which took place without Vardy or Rooney attending in person - lawyers for Vardy argued that Rooney's "detective process" in her Instagram post was "to find the true villain of the piece", and claimed "the finger is being pointed" at Vardy as a person, rather than her Instagram account.

Hugh Tomlinson QC, for Vardy, said: "The person is Rebekah Vardy, the finger is being pointed at her, as the villain, the person, the someone, the one person."

However, court documents claim Rooney only ever accused Vardy's account of accessing the stories, not the star herself.

This has been a burden in my life for a few years now and finally I have got to the bottom of it...... pic.twitter.com/0YqJAoXuK1

— Coleen Rooney (@ColeenRoo) October 9, 2019

@ColeenRoo pic.twitter.com/VkhkkIa6nh

— Rebekah Vardy (@RebekahVardy) October 9, 2019

They state: "The source of the leaks of the Defendant's private information was the Claimant's account.

"The emphasis of 'except ONE account' (with capital letters) and the final words of the post make clear that the responsibility lies with a particular account.

"As a result of this, a reasonable reader would conclude that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that the Claimant had leaked the information herself, but the finger is pointed firmly at the account, not the Claimant herself."