Rebekah Vardy loses bid to get Coleen Rooney's 'Wagatha Christie' court bill slashed

The WAGs were back in court again

Rebekah Vardy has lost her bid to get her court bill slashed following her 'Wagatha Christie' battle against Coleen Rooney. The pair were back in court amid an ongoing dispute over legal costs Rebekah has to pay.

Rebekah's legal team accused Coleen lawyers of 'deliberately deceiving' the High Court over the £1.8 million it is said she owes. It comes after the former ITV I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! star lost an infamous libel battle in 2022.

Following the case, Rebekah was ordered to pick up 90 per cent of Coleen's costs - including an initial payment of £800,000. But Coleen's team claims she spent a total of £1,833,906.89 to go head-to-head with Rebekah.

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The latest hearing in London was told this amount was more than three times her 'agreed costs budget of £540,779.07'. Rebekah's laywer Jamie Carpenter KC said the costs were 'disproportionate'.

In written submissions, he said that Coleen and her legal team 'deliberately understated' some of her costs so she could 'use the apparent difference in incurred costs thereby created, to attack the other party's costs. He claimed this amounted to 'serious misconduct' and meant that Rebekah should pay less.

But a judge has now ruled that Coleen's lawyers did not commit misconduct. Coleen's lawyer Robin Dunne also said that 'there has been no misconduct' and that it was 'illogical to say that we misled anyone'.

In a ruling on Tuesday (October 8), Senior Costs Judge Andrew Gordon-Saker said he found 'on balance' but 'only just' that Coleen's legal team had not committed wrongdoing. It was 'not an appropriate case' to reduce the amount of money that Rebekah has to pay, he said.

There was a 'failure to be transparent' but it was not 'sufficiently unreasonable or improper' to constitute misconduct, the judge added. Coleen - who is married to former Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney - accused Rebekah in 2019 of leaking her private information to the press on social media.

Mrs Justice Steyn found in July 2022 that this was 'substantially true'. The judge ordered the wife of Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy to pay the majority of Coleen's costs.

Mr Carpenter had argued that the 'understatement' of some costs was 'improper and unreasonable'. It also 'involved knowingly misleading Mrs Vardy and the court', he alleged.

Mr Dunne said the bid to reduce the court bill was 'misconceived' and that the budget was 'not designed to be an accurate or binding representation' of her overall legal costs. He said: "Mrs Vardy's argument appears to arise from her frustration that her deplorable conduct in this litigation has led to the budgets becoming irrelevant."

Mr Dunne added: "Had Mrs Vardy conducted this matter in a reasonable fashion, Mrs Rooney would be confined to her budget and would have recovered no more absent good reason." The hearing is dealing with points of principle before a line-by-line assessment of costs, which will take place at a later date.

Coleen and Rebekah did not attend the hearing, which will come to an end on Wednesday.