LONDON - Coleen Rooney has said her suspicions that Rebekah Vardy was responsible for leaking stories about her were raised after Mrs Vardy messaged her asking why she had been unfollowed on Instagram. Mrs Rooney gave evidence on day five of the libel case brought by Mrs Vardy. The court heard that Mrs Vardy messaged Mrs Rooney to ask why she had unfollowed her. Mrs Rooney said that “added to the suspicions that I had” that Mrs Vardy was passing information to the press. She said she “told a fib” when she informed Mrs Vardy she did not know how the unfollowing had happened, but said keeping the real reason secret was important to her sting operation. At the time, Mrs Rooney was trying to identify which of her followers was leaking information about her to the Sun. Mrs Rooney told the court she had posted several general warnings on social media about someone leaking stories, but the person responsible had not come forward.

 

The court heard Mrs Rooney told Mrs Vardy that she had not realised she had unfollowed her on Instagram and that it might have been one of her children by accident. Mrs Vardy’s barrister Hugh Tomlinson asked: “Why weren’t you honest, Mrs Rooney?”

She replied: “I didn’t want to because I had put warning signs out there and Mrs Vardy, or whoever was on her account, never came to me and said ‘it was me that has been passing information onto the Sun’.”

She added: “At that time I didn’t think Mrs Vardy would tell the truth anyway, even if I confronted her.”

Mrs Rooney reiterated that the pair, whose husbands Wayne and Jamie played football for England together, were “not good friends”, and that if someone had unfollowed her she “wouldn’t have been that bothered really”.

“I felt it was suspicious. Obviously I had suspicions in other ways, so this just added to the suspicions that I had,” she said.