Rebekah Vardy has been ordered to pay Coleen Rooney £800,000 in legal costs after her failed defamation trial.
He could also have to pay an extra £700,000, bringing the total potential bill to Mrs Rooney to £1.5m.
In a court order handed down by the High Court on Tuesday, Judge Steyn said Vardy must pay the £800,000 sum by 4pm on November 15.
The judge said he had settled on such a punitive charge because he found Ms Vardy had “deliberately erased or destroyed evidence” before the trial.
Vardy will also have to pay the legal costs of journalists who were called as witnesses in the trial, as well as his own costs. As a result, his combined bill from the failed court case could exceed £3m.
Vardy sued Rooney for defamation after he publicly accused him of being the source of the stories that were leaked to The Sun newspaper.
In October 2019, the wife of former England star Wayne Rooney posted on her social media accounts saying she had been carrying out a “sting” for months and accused Mrs Vardy of leaking ” fake stories” about his private life in the press. The operation earned Ms Rooney the nickname “Wagatha Christie”.
Rebekah Vardy will have to pay her own legal fees in addition to Ms Rooney’s costs
(Reuters)
After being publicly called out, Ms Vardy denied leaking stories to the media and sued Ms Rooney for defamation in a highly publicized trial. After two grueling and headline-grabbing weeks in court, Judge Steyn ruled that, while Vardy was not the direct source of the leak, the evidence showed he “knew, condoned and actively participated” in the information being passed on The Sol.
In her ruling, the High Court judge said “significant parts of Ms Vardy’s evidence were not credible”. He said that “there has been a degree of self-deception [Vardy’s] part about the extent to which she was involved”.
Ms Rooney accused Ms Vardy of leaking stories about her private life to the media
(son PA)
Ms Rooney’s legal representative, Paul Lunt, said the sentence reflected the fact Ms Vardy had destroyed evidence.
He said: “The High Court has today ruled that Rebekah Vardy must pay Coleen Rooney’s legal costs on an indemnity basis, the highest basis the court could order.
“The reasoning given for this decision is that there was a finding at trial that Rebekah Vardy had deliberately erased or destroyed evidence.
“Such behavior falls outside the ordinary and reasonable conduct expected of a party in a judicial proceeding.”
The judge ordered Ms Vardy to pay compensation costs because she had “deliberately erased or destroyed evidence”.
(Reuters)
The costs court order, published on Tuesday, revealed that Ms Rooney’s team had initially sought an interim payment of £1,250,895.36 but reduced the figure to £1m.
Ms Vardy “accepts that she was the unsuccessful party”, Judge Steyn wrote in the order. But her team argued for a 20% reduction in Ms Rooney’s costs because of her success in certain aspects of the case.
Judge Steyn ruled that Vardy should pay 90 per cent of Ms Rooney’s legal costs, saying there were certain issues that warranted a 10 per cent reduction, including Ms Rooney’s claim that Vardy he was one of the people behind The Sun’s “Secret Wag”. ” gossip column.
It also ruled that costs should be assessed on an indemnity rather than a standard basis, a decision which is more favorable to Ms Rooney in terms of the part of her legal bill she can recover.
Additional information from the Press Association.