British Show 'Wagatha Christie' Trial Ends: Judge Finds No Defamation
The High Court in London has ruled against plaintiff Rebekah Vardy, ending a social media feud that turned into a legal showdown highly publicized .
LONDON - It started as an Instagram-linked feud between the wives of two British football stars and turned into a libel suit that has provided a welcome distraction to a nation in turmoil.
The High Court ended the long-running legal wrangle on Friday by ruling against plaintiff Rebekah Vardy, saying she had not been defamed by her former friend Coleen Rooney.
In the verdict, Judge Karen Steyn said the reputational damage suffered by Ms Vardy n didn't have what she described as "the sting of defamation". For that and other reasons, she said in a written decision released Friday, "the matter is closed." The judge also reprimanded Ms Vardy, writing that "significant parts of her testimony were not believable".
With its combination of low stakes and high melodrama , the dispute between Ms Vardy and Ms Rooney was not the trial of the century. But the case drew months of heated tabloid coverage at a time when Britain was navigating between a stubborn pandemic and a struggling economy with its prime minister on the ropes.
Mrs. Vardy, the wife of Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, and Ms Rooney, who is married to former Manchester United star Wayne Rooney, belong to a group known as WAGs, a common acronym, although sexist, tabloid for the "wives and girlfriends" of professional athletes, especially Premier League footballers.
In 2019, Ms Rooney suspected that a follower of her private Instagram account was selling information about her, gleaned from her posts, to The Sun, a London tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch, known for its spiky coverage of celebrities.To uncover the alleged leaker, Ms Rooney set a trap: she made her Instagram stories visible only to Ms. Vardy and used the account to provide false information about herself, then she waited to see if her fictions made it to the press.
At the end of its infi operation After a month, Ms Rooney claimed Ms Vardy was the culprit. She made the accusation in a statement on social media in the fall of 2019 that was widely shared. Due to her detective tactics, Ms. Rooney became known as "Wagatha Christie", a mixture of WAG and Agatha Christie, the 20th century crime writer.
Mrs. Vardy quickly denied that she was responsible for the leak. She then said she had hired computer forensics experts to determine if anyone else had access to her Instagram account. In 2020, after mediation failed, Ms Vardy brought a libel action against Ms Rooney in the High Court, which oversees high-profile civil cases in Britain.
This May, the participants entered the courtroom. The proceeding, officially called Vardy v. Rooney, became known as the Wagatha Christie trial. The term was so common that it appeared in a crawl on Sky News right next to "War in Ukraine".
The High Court in London has ruled against plaintiff Rebekah Vardy, ending a social media feud that turned into a legal showdown highly publicized .
LONDON - It started as an Instagram-linked feud between the wives of two British football stars and turned into a libel suit that has provided a welcome distraction to a nation in turmoil.
The High Court ended the long-running legal wrangle on Friday by ruling against plaintiff Rebekah Vardy, saying she had not been defamed by her former friend Coleen Rooney.
In the verdict, Judge Karen Steyn said the reputational damage suffered by Ms Vardy n didn't have what she described as "the sting of defamation". For that and other reasons, she said in a written decision released Friday, "the matter is closed." The judge also reprimanded Ms Vardy, writing that "significant parts of her testimony were not believable".
With its combination of low stakes and high melodrama , the dispute between Ms Vardy and Ms Rooney was not the trial of the century. But the case drew months of heated tabloid coverage at a time when Britain was navigating between a stubborn pandemic and a struggling economy with its prime minister on the ropes.
Mrs. Vardy, the wife of Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, and Ms Rooney, who is married to former Manchester United star Wayne Rooney, belong to a group known as WAGs, a common acronym, although sexist, tabloid for the "wives and girlfriends" of professional athletes, especially Premier League footballers.
In 2019, Ms Rooney suspected that a follower of her private Instagram account was selling information about her, gleaned from her posts, to The Sun, a London tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch, known for its spiky coverage of celebrities.To uncover the alleged leaker, Ms Rooney set a trap: she made her Instagram stories visible only to Ms. Vardy and used the account to provide false information about herself, then she waited to see if her fictions made it to the press.
At the end of its infi operation After a month, Ms Rooney claimed Ms Vardy was the culprit. She made the accusation in a statement on social media in the fall of 2019 that was widely shared. Due to her detective tactics, Ms. Rooney became known as "Wagatha Christie", a mixture of WAG and Agatha Christie, the 20th century crime writer.
Mrs. Vardy quickly denied that she was responsible for the leak. She then said she had hired computer forensics experts to determine if anyone else had access to her Instagram account. In 2020, after mediation failed, Ms Vardy brought a libel action against Ms Rooney in the High Court, which oversees high-profile civil cases in Britain.
This May, the participants entered the courtroom. The proceeding, officially called Vardy v. Rooney, became known as the Wagatha Christie trial. The term was so common that it appeared in a crawl on Sky News right next to "War in Ukraine".
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