Rebekah Vardy has denied “orchestrating” a photo of footballers’ wives and girlfriends at the 2018 World Cup, on the third day of her UK High Court libel trial against Coleen Rooney.
On Thursday, Mrs Vardy entered the witness box for the third time on what is expected to be the final day of her evidence in what has been dubbed the “Wagatha Christie” case.
In a viral social media post in October 2019, Mrs Rooney, 36, said she had carried out a “sting operation” and accused Mrs Vardy, 40, of leaking “false stories” about her private life to the press.
Mrs Vardy, who is married to Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, denies leaking stories to the media and is suing her fellow footballer’s wife for libel, while Mrs Rooney is defending the claim on the basis her post was “substantially true”.
However, Mrs Vardy said Ms Watt had arranged for a photographer to take pictures of her as she left her hotel, but denied giving the photographer the location of either the hotel or a restaurant she went to the same evening with a group of the England team’s wives and girlfriends.
“I didn’t arrange the photograph outside of the restaurant,” she told the court.
She also said she was “happy” to be photographed leaving the hotel, but claimed that updates she sent to Ms Watt when plans changed throughout the evening were not because she was working with the agent to arrange a “pap shot” of the group as they left the restaurant.
During a further exchange with Mr Sherborne, Mrs Vardy again denied having orchestrated the photograph, adding: “If I had intentionally arranged the picture… I would quite happily admit that I had.”
She said that, by replying as she did to Ms Watt, she was “just trying to get her off my back actually and enjoy my evening, it had been quite a crazy few days”.
But Mr Sherborne later suggested: “You were perfectly happy for this staged photo to take place, perfectly happy for Caroline Watt to do the dirty as long as the dirt doesn’t come back on you.”
“Not true,” Mrs Vardy replied.
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