Coleen Rooney lodges 55-page defence in bitter Rebekah Vardy row

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These are the fake pictures Coleen Rooney posted on Instagram to prove Rebekah Vardy was the person leaking stories about her to the press, explosive court documents claim.

Coleen, who had long suspected that one of her trusted friends was briefing journalists about her, said she was determined to try and show beyond doubt who it was.

Images released for the first time today in her bitter High Court battle against Rebekah show the lengths Coleen went to in order to confirm her fears.

In one, a picture of an airline seat can be seen as Coleen ponders finding out about ‘gender selection’, while in another Wayne Rooney’s wife can been seen in a selfie, considering her future TV career.

A third shows a bottle of Cloudy Bay white wine and a scrunched face emoji after Coleen described the nightmare of a flooded basement.

All three stories were fake and led to Coleen pronouncing on social media that the source was Rebekah Vardy’s account.

Details of Coleen’s elaborate sting, which won her the nickname Wagatha Christie, were laid out in a blistering 55 page court document in which she defends herself in her ongoing court battle.

In the document, seen by MailOnline, Coleen laid out in precise detail why she believes Rebekah routinely briefed journalists about her.

It reveals the extraordinary lengths Coleen went to, she claims, to prove that no one other that Rebekah or those close to her could have passed on the information.

Coleen and Rebekah are due to meet each other at the High Court in next year after Rebekah sued her for defamation.

A spokesman for Coleen Rooney said of the document: ‘Coleen has always been confident of her position, although she takes no pleasure in now having to set out in public court documents the reasons why.

‘It remains a matter of deep regret to her that Rebekah seems determined to persist with court action despite Coleen’s offers of private mediation. Coleen believes the money being spent could be put to much better use in these times.’

In spikey defence against her former friend, Coleen accuses Rebekah of having a history of close relationships with journalists and habitually passing on private information to promote herself.

She accuses Rebekah of being The Sun’s ‘Secret Wag’ as well as being a serial leaker of Coleen’s information to the media.

The sensational claim in a blistering legal document, filed at the High Court, describes Rebekah as having an ‘established history and habitual practice of providing private information to journalists’.

The legal defence filed by Coleen’s lawyers makes it clear she stands by every word of the Tweets and Instagram posts which prompted Rebekah, 38, to launch a libel case against her in the High Court.

And despite stories earlier this week suggesting that Coleen was keen to call off the whole case, the new development makes it clear that the 34-year-old wife of former England striker Wayne Rooney is determined to see her WAG rival in court.

The paper goes into granular detail, naming names of journalists and showbiz agents who Rebekah allegedly was in contact with over various leaked stories.

The defence document refers to ‘The Claimant’s [Vardy’s] established history and habitual practice of providing private information to journalists and the press, including The Sun and The Sun on Sunday newspapers, with whom she has especially close relationships.

‘The Claimant sometimes provided this directly, sometimes anonymously (under the

pseudonym, ‘the Secret Wag’, a regular gossip column in The Sun for which she was the source, despite her denying this) and sometimes through third parties who were acting as approved or condoned by her.’

The ‘Wagatha Christie’ saga began a year ago when Coleen claimed in a tweet that she had restricted access to her stories in a bid to find out who was leaking tales about her personal life.

She then posted her findings with the line: ‘It’s . . . Rebekah Vardy’s account.’ 

Paul Lunt, solicitor to Coleen Rooney and head of litigation at law firm Brabners, said: ‘We confirm our client, Coleen Rooney has now filed her defence to the High Court to proceedings which Rebekah has chosen to bring.

‘Coleen’s defence makes clear why, from the outset, she has been entirely confident in her position. She remains surprised and disappointed at Mrs Vardy’s decision to initiate these proceedings and to continue to pursue these matters through the courts.

‘Coleen has always said that this could and should have been resolved face to face without the need for court proceedings. Through Brabners, she has repeatedly offered Mrs Vardy the opportunity to meet face to face to resolve their differences. These offers have included the assistance of a professional, independent mediator and remain open. So far at least, Mrs Vardy and her legal team have preferred instead to pursue these issues in court.

‘Accordingly, Coleen’s defence document has been filed as part of the court process requiring her to provide details on her position.

‘Although Coleen’s defence is necessarily a public document, out of respect to the court process, she will not make any comment on the issues it addresses. She reiterates her long-standing view that time and money spent on this legal case could and should be better used.’

‘The Claimant [Vardy] acted in this way for the purposes of promoting herself and/or financially exploiting her public profile, particularly as the partner of the well-known footballer, Jamie Vardy. ‘

Coleen’s lawyers go on to claim that her post about Rebekah was a ‘legitmate matter of public interest’, saying ‘ The fact that information from her private Instagram account had been provided to and published in The Sun newspaper for millions of people to read was an issue which the Defendant was forced to make public on her social media.

‘Her Post was necessary because the very public disclosure of her private information had continued despite previous warnings she had put out publicly that someone with access to her private Instagram account was providing this information to The Sun for it to publish.

‘After careful investigation, the Defendant established that information from her private account which was published by the newspaper had only been accessible to and shared with the Claimant (through her Instagram account).

‘No credible or verified ‘alternative’ explanation has been provided by the Claimant as to how the Defendant’s private information, which was shared only with her (through her Instagram account), could have been and was in fact given to The Sun. ‘

Coleen’s papers respond to a point raised by Rebekah’s lawyers who pointed out as part of their claim that her reputation suffered ‘serious harm’ that her name was ‘trending’ on Google following Coleen’s posts – even exceeding interest in Brexit. Rooney’s lawyers reply: ‘It is not a helpful comparator, nor a useful means by which to assess serious harm.

The Claimant has previously exceeded interest in Brexit on Google Trends on several occasions…Indeed, for a time on Google Trends, around the same time as the Post, interest in the breakfast cereal Corn Flakes exceeded that in Brexit.’

The document explains in detail how Coleen set up her ‘sting operation’ to be able to pinpoint Rebekah as the alleged source of two leaked stories which Coleen had invented using fictitious Instagram posts which she allowed only Becky to see.

The first, a story which appeared in The Sun claiming that……. Is referred to as ‘the gender selection story’.

In August, the Sun ran the headline ‘Col’s baby girl bid’, followed by ‘Coleen Rooney travelled to Mexico to look into £8k gender selection in desperate bid to have baby girl’.

On April 8, last year, Coleen Rooney had blocked all her Instagram followers except for Rebekah, and took a plane to Mexico. Rooney then published a post showing the back seat of an aeroplane, overlaid with the words ‘let’s go and see what this gender selection is all about.’

The post was marked as ‘seen’ only by Rebekah.

By the time Rooney unblocked her other followers, on April 10, the gender selection post had already expired.

A full four months later, on August 14, a reporter from the Sun contacted Rooney’s PR for a comment on a story they were about to run that Rooney was looking into gender selection, according to the defence document.

The PR was unaware that the story had been posted as a ‘fabrication’ and initially denied that it was true. But said she would ask for a quote after she was told there was a screenshot of the post.

The court papers say it can be inferred that the screenshot was taken by Rebekah and it was, indeed, in keeping with her habit of taking screenshots.

Coleen’s lawyers said it was ‘inherently unlikely’ that a journalist who had come across the story personally in April would have sat on it until August.

They noted that the phrase ‘gender selection’, rather than an alternative such as sex selection was exactly the same as that used by Rooney in the Instagram post. 

The second story is referred to as the ‘flooded basement story’, and Coleen says, resulted in another story in the Sun claiming that the Rooney’s £20m mansion had been flooded.

Coleen’s lawyers said she published a post on her Instagram Stories of her private account, visible only to Becky.

The post was a photograph of a bottle of wine overlaid with the text ‘Needed after today ��… flood in the basement of our new house…when it all seemed to be going so well ��’.

Six days later, the Sun published their story, which Coleen had only invented for her sting.

The defence document states that Becky had followed the Sun journalist Simon Boyle who wrote the story and ‘enjoyed an extremely close relationship with a number of journalists at The Sun, including Mr Boyle.’