Rebekah Vardy LOSES bid to have Coleen Rooney’s Wagatha Christie court costs slashed & faces £1.6m bill
COLEEN Rooney has beaten Rebekah Vardy again after a judge ruled her Wagatha Christie costs will not be slashed.
The bombshell case has landed back in court this week amid an ongoing battle over costs.
Rebekah, 42, was ordered to pick up 90 per cent of Coleen’s bill – including an initial payment of £800,000 -after she sensationally lost the libel case.
Team Coleen have put their costs at £1,833,906.89 – more than three times her “agreed costs budget of £540,779.07”, the court heard.
Her lawyer Jamie Carpenter KC accused Coleen’s team of “deliberately deceiving” the court by underestimating costs and time spent working on the case.
He claimed this was done so Coleen, 38, could “use the apparent difference in incurred costs to attack the other party’s costs”.
This, he said, warranted a reduction in the amount that Rebekah should shell out.
But in a ruling today, Senior Costs Judge Andrew Gordon-Saker found “on balance and, I have to say, only just”, that team Coleen had not committed wrongdoing.
As a result, it would therefore not be “appropriate” to reduce the amount of money Rebekah should pay – meaning she could still be landed with a £1.6million bill.
The judge also said that while there was a “failure to be transparent”, it was not “sufficiently unreasonable or improper” to constitute misconduct.
Mr Carpenter argued Rebekah should not be forced to pay around £117,500 plus VAT for “expert fees” invoiced after the budget was agreed in August 2021.
He said the incurred costs should be reduced to £367,732.
Mr Carpenter also accused Coleen’s team of adopting a “kitchen sink approach” when calculating the total.
He claimed the bill included costs for one of Coleen’s team to stay at the five star Nobu Hotel.
It also included “substantial dinner and drinks charges as well as mini bar charges”, the lawyer said.
But Robin Dunne, for Coleen, argued it was “frankly outrageous” to accuse them of dishonesty.
He also said Rebekah had shown “deplorable conduct” in the case and and costs could have been lower if “she conducted this litigation appropriately”.
The lawyer added: “This was a libel claim which Mrs Vardy chose to launch, despite knowing that the Instagram post was true.
“Mrs Vardy refused to engage with Mrs Rooney to try and avoid these proceedings and by her conduct meant that significant additional costs were required to be incurred by Mrs Rooney.
“It sits ill in Mrs Vardy’s mouth to now claim that Mrs Rooney’s costs, a great deal of which were caused directly by her conduct, are unreasonable.”
Rebekah brought the multi-million pound case to court after she was accused of leaking stories to the press.
But Coleen – wife of ex-England ace Wayne – won the epic libel battle in 2022 – bringing an end to the three-year saga.
The row erupted back in October 2019 when Coleen turned detective and accused Rebekah of sharing stories from her personal Instagram account.
In the infamous post, Coleen said she posted a string of false stories via her Instagram account with restricted access to see if they appeared in the media, which they did.
She then said the fake stories had only been viewed by one person, and ended dramatically: “It’s . . . Rebekah Vardy’s account.”
In return, Rebekah declared war and accused Coleen of destroying her reputation as she brought the libel case to court.
But her reputation and finances were left hanging in tatters after she was savaged by Mrs Justice Steyn in her ruling.
The judge said Rebekah “knew of, condoned and was actively engaged” in leaks to the media by her agent Caroline Watts.
She branded the mum-of-five’s evidence as “manifestly inconsistent” but praised Coleen as an “honest and reliable” witness.
Mrs Justice Steyn also found Rebekah deliberately destroyed evidence to cover up her deceit.
The hearing this week is dealing with points of principle before a line-by-line assessment of costs, which will take place at a later date.