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Football

11th May 2022

Wagatha Christie trial: Rebekah Vardy admits she tried to leak Danny Drinkwater story to tabloid

Charlie Herbert

Rebekah Vardy admits to trying leak Drinkwater arrest to the Sun

She insisted it was a one-off

Rebekah Vardy has admitted to trying to leak a story about Danny Drinkwater’s arrest for drink-driving to The Sun.

Vardy is suing Coleen Rooney for libel after Rooney accused her of leaking stories about her private life to The Sun in October 2019. Vardy denies these accusations and claims they are false and defamatory.

As part of the trial, Vardy has been under cross-examination from Rooney’s barrister, David Sherborne.

On Wednesday, Vardy, wife of Leicester City footballer Jamie, told the court she sent information about Drinkwater’s 2019 arrest to her agent Caroline Watt, along with a WhatsApp message which read: “I want paying for this.”

The court heard that when Vardy heard the paper had already got hold of the story from another source, she said she was ““fuming I didn’t give it to you earlier.”

Her agent replied “That would have been a fortune,” followed by a crying laughing emoji.

She then suggested to Vardy that she find out where Drinkwater lived and that she should share the information with a paparazzi agency.

But Vardy told the court that this was a one-off and that she did not regularly leak stories to the media, the Guardian reports. She also claimed that the request of payment from The Sun was a “fleeting thought,” and that her motivation for leaking the story had been to expose a drink-driver to the public.

During his cross-examination of Vardy, Rooney’s barrister David Sherbourne has argued the 40-year-old had a habit of leaking private information to her agent Watt, who would then deal with the newspapers.

She has already been questioned over claims she leaked information about her husband’s Leicester City teammate Riyad Mahrez amid his acrimonious departure from the East Midlands side.

Last month, Rooney’s team lost a High Court bid to bring a claim against Watt for misuse of private information.

The trial continues.

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