David Sherborne, Mrs. Rooney’s attorney, argued that Mrs. Vardy had a “common and established practice” of leaking information about those she knew – through her friend and former agent Caroline Watt – to The Sun newspaper.
The first day of the trial ended with the dramatic disclosure of a 2004 News of the World article in which Ms. Vardy spoke of an alleged sexual encounter with singer Peter Andre. The lawyer read the headline to the court and said: “Peter hangs like a little chipolata, shaved, drooling, lasts five minutes.”
Mr Vardy, 35, attended the trial with his wife and heard evidence from Mr Rooney, 36, of an alleged “awkward” conversation with him about Ms Vardy at the Euro 2016 tournament.
Rooney claimed in court that he was asked by Roy Hodgson, the then England manager, to speak to Mr Vardy about getting his wife to “calm down”, adding documentary evidence that the FA believed her media activities were causing “trouble and distraction”.
‘The story is fishy enough’
Experts were also called to testify about issues relating to data from Ms Vardy and Ms Rooney’s phones, with Matthew Blackband, a former Scotland Yard detective, saying he believed there was a “high probability” that “manual deletion” the loss of messages from Ms. Vardy’s device.
The attorney also discussed the loss of Ms Watt’s cell phone, which is allegedly… dropped in the North Sea. “This fateful trip took place just days after the court requested an inspection of her phone,” he said. “The story, we say, is weird enough — no pun intended.”
Hugh Tomlinson, QC, on behalf of Ms Vardy, said Ms Rooney had “provided no evidence” that Ms Vardy had “regularly and often abused her trusted follower status” of her private Instagram account by passing information from it to The Sun.
Tomlinson said the fight against libel was a “very simple case” when “one clears up the conspiracy theories”.
Mrs Justice Steyn will publish her statement Friday at 12 noon.