Vardy must pay £1.8m in Wagatha Christie legal bill

Rebekah Vardy has lost a dispute over spiralling legal costs in the Wagatha Christie libel trial, leaving her with a £1.8m bill for Coleen Rooney’s lawyers.

- AMY-CLARE MARTIN

Ms Vardy lost the high-profile libel action in 2022 and was ordered to pay the sum to cover 90 per cent of Ms Rooney’s legal costs.

But lawyers for the media personality, who is married to Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, disputed the amount, arguing in the High Court last month that Ms Rooney had deliberately understated her costs at an earlier hearing.

Ms Vardy’s barristers previously told a costs judge that Ms Rooney and her legal team committed “serious misconduct” by understating some of her costs to “attack the other party’s costs”. A judge found no misconduct had been committed.

Appealing that decision last month, Jamie Carpenter KC said Ms Rooney “very substantially understated” her legal costs by around 40 per cent in her budget, known as a “precedent H”, back in 2021, in written submissions for Ms Vardy.