Coleen Rooney has won the latest round in the Wagatha Christie case with Rebekah Vardy.
The WAGs have been locked in a legal battle after Mrs Rooney accused Mrs Vardy’s Instagram account of leaking stories from her private social media in an extraordinary rant.
Mrs Vardy has denied and now is suing Mrs Rooney for damages for libel.
In the latest development from court, Mrs Vardy has been ordered to pay £10,500 towards her rival’s legal fees in their High Court battle.
In a statement, Coleen’s representative told The Sun: “Naturally Coleen and her legal team are pleased with the judge’s rulings and her award of costs.”
Coleen’s legal team reportedly compared the win to a “2-1 victory in the semi-final”.
The next trial date has been set for September.
Charlotte Harris of law firm Kingsley Napley, representing Mrs Vardy, has told MailOnline her client “is completely confident that she will succeed at trial.”
She said: “The Judge has struck out about 10 pages of material from Mrs Rooney’s defence as irrelevant or a waste of court time. Mrs Rooney has to re-plead the part of her public interest defence which was said by the Judge to be ‘impermissible’.
“This is now Mrs Rooney’s third attempt at a putting forward a defence to Mrs Vardy’s libel claim. She has been ordered to cover the costs of this exercise and Mrs Vardy’s costs of amending her Reply. The Judge made three costs orders – two in favour of Mrs Vardy and one in favour of Mrs Rooney for £10,500.
“Although the Judge did not allow the Summary judgement application, she said in her judgement that there was ‘some force’ in Mrs Vardy’s case that there are very significant differences between the TV Decisions Articles and the post on which it is supposed to be based. This goes to the heart of the case.
“Mrs Vardy is not the Secret Wag. The Judge has made clear that the identity of the Secret Wag does not go to the core issues and has reserved the ability to cut out or limit this issue in the future.”
