Wagatha Christie: Best moments from the Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy trial so far

From chipolatas to Davy Jones, we take a look at the craziest moments from the UK’s premier court drama.

While most of the internet has been utterly consumed by the trial of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, in the UK everyone is obsessed with the war between Vardy and Rooney (no, not the high profile footballers).

Ms Vardy sued Ms Rooney for defamation after Ms Rooney publicly accused her account of being the source of stories in the tabloid press in 2019. The seven-day trial wrapped up on the 19th of May with closing speeches from both sides. There is now a wait of possibly months before the judge, Ms Justice Steyn, releases her judgement.

Despite the expense of the legal battle — it is thought to have cost both parties millions — Coleen is said to be extremely confident she will win, even missing the last day of the case to go on holiday to Dubai with her husband Wayne and their children.

The trial dubbed ‘Wagatha Christie’, a nod to Ms Rooney’s investigative skills, has been pure gold all the way through so we rounded up some of the best and downright bizarre moments of the trial. And yes, this is a real trial that happened in the high court.

Peter Andre’s ‘chipolata’

On day one of the trial, barrister David Sherborne attempted to show Ms Vardy had no regard for people’s privacy by awkwardly reading out the words: “Peter’s hung like a small chipolata, shaved, slobbery, lasts five minutes.”

He was reading the headline of a 2004 News of The World interview with Ms Vardy. Holding out an A3 printout of the article to Ms Vardy in the witness box, he continued to read excepts from the piece, which claimed former pop star Mr Andre had “the smallest trouser equipment I’ve ever seen”.

Ms Vardy later told the court the interview was “one of my biggest regrets”. Mr Andre also dramatically hit back at the re-surfaced interview, telling his Instagram followers: “It’s been the butt of all jokes. I’ve taken it for 15 years.”

‘Wow that’s war’

The aftermath of Ms Rooney’s bombshell ‘Wagatha Christie’ post was revealed in messages between Ms Vardy and her agent Caroline Watt. In exchanges submitted to court, Ms Watt sent Ms Vardy the Twitter message, saying: “Message her now and ask what the fuck this is x”.

“Wow that’s war x”, Ms Vardy replied.

Ms Watt told Ms Vardy: “You will have to say that you don’t speak to anyone about her but that recently your insta has even been following people you don’t follow… Just say you allowed a company to access it for sponsored posts and a former social media agency that worked with too.”

‘Davy Jones’

After it was revealed that Vardy’s agent had ‘lost’ her phone in the north sea which supposedly held crucial evidence, Ms Rooney’s lawyer stated it was now ‘in Davy Jones’ locker’. A confused Vardy then asked “who is Davy Jones” causing the judge to have to excruciatingly explain the expression and the Pirates of the Caribbean film to Ms Vardy.

Jamie Vardy’s intervention

Wayne Rooney made an appearance in the witness box and claimed that during England’s Euro 2016 campaign then England manager Roy Hodgson wasn’t too fond of Ms Vardy’s media activities. Hodgson then asked Mr Rooney to have a conversation with Mr Vardy in which he did. “So I agreed to speak to Mr Vardy… to ask him to ask his wife to calm down.” said the former England striker.

Safe to say Mr Vardy didn’t take too kindly to Wayne’s words calling it ‘nonsense’. He said in a statement: “Wayne is talking nonsense. He must be confused because he never spoke to me about issues concerning Becky’s media work at Euro 2016.”

Coleen the pigeon

Excerpts from Ms Vardy’s Daily Mail interview, given the day after Ms Rooney’s reveal post, were read to the High Court. Ms Vardy said in the interview “Arguing with Coleen Rooney would be like arguing with a pigeon. You can tell it that you are right and it is wrong, but it’s still going to shit in your hair.”

Ms Vardy testified: “At the time I was speaking to [the Daily Mail journalist] I didn’t know what to think, I didn’t know what to believe… I wasn’t thinking straight the day after this had happened.”

Writer
Chris Saunders