The High Court in London is the setting of the high-profile WAG court caseBjørn Erik Pedersen / Wikimedia Commons

For millennia, high-profile trials have gripped the public’s attention: the impeachment of Bill Clinton, the OJ Simpson case, the trials of Galileo and Socrates. Inevitably, history will now be marked by two more high-calibre names engaged in an epic legal showdown. The ‘Wagatha Christie’ herself, Coleen Rooney, and the scorned retaliator, Rebekah Vardy, have come close to dividing the nation over infighting in the highest echelons of the British WAG (wife and girlfriend, used to describe the partners of England footballers) community.

Each armed with more money and time than sense, the affluent pair have drawn out their row over Rooney’s 2019 tweet, which alleged that “Rebekah Vardy’s account” had been leaking stories to The Sun, for almost three years. As a result of the now famous tweet, Rebekah Vardy has sued Coleen Rooney for libel.

“[...]the history of celebrity court cases suggests that Vardy v. Rooney may have an impact beyond its frivolous origins”

By this point, Rooney has surely forgotten the rush of media adoration that greeted her initial sleuthing success. Vardy too, surely, is longing for a simpler time when the animosity of footballers’ wives manifested itself in frosty glares during shopping outings in Baden-Baden, and not Twitter exposés or £3 million of litigation.

‘Wagatha Christie’ has quickly highlighted the irony inherent in a high-profile defamation lawsuit. They are naturally brought by a party looking to clear their name. Yet, in order to do so, the courts subject that party to a rigmarole of questioning and dirt-digging. Vardy has already seen this first-hand. In a matter of days, Vardy has gained a reputation as a fame-hungry, entitled kiss-and-tell author, whose possible leaking of a friend’s Insta-stories are the least of her crimes. Perhaps most of all, neither woman can escape the ridiculousness of their circumstances. Is it worse to be known as someone who ‘leaked’ the state of a friend’s basement to the tabloids, or someone who took her friend to court for tweeting just that? The line is certainly thin.

“Spending millions on litigating a social media spat reeks of entitlement”

There are some rather more serious criticisms of the ‘Wagatha Christie’ fallout. In a court system already clogged by procedure and pandemic delays, spending millions on litigating a social media spat reeks of entitlement. Even courtroom chuckles over Peter Andre and his “chipolata”, or Vardy’s uncomplimentary comparisons of Rooney to a “pigeon that shits in your hair” do not, in this climate, seem worth the escalating taxpayer cost. That being said, the history of celebrity court cases suggests that Vardy v. Rooney may have an impact beyond its frivolous origins.

In 2004, Naomi Campbell successfully sued the Daily Mirror, who had published photos of the model leaving a drug rehab centre. The trial and its fallout provided international tabloid fodder for months, but its impact on Britain’s human rights jurisprudence has far outlived the media’s interest. Campbell v. MGN led to the revamping of the tort of breach of confidence, involved an analysis of the rights to privacy and free speech, and revealed important truths about the constitutional position of human rights in Britain. Indeed, as the first year of my law degree has made me painfully aware, Ms Campbell’s case is now a staple of any public law textbook.


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Is it a little presumptuous to think that Vardy v. Rooney might have anything like the legacy of Campbell v. MGN? I would suggest not. The preliminary rounds of the case have raised contentious issues about the distinction between an individual and their social media account. Is accusing a WAG’s social media account of WAG-on-WAG crime the same as directly accusing the WAG in question? What shape should defamation, the civil wrong of untruths which damage another’s reputation, take in the social media age? This fight has already escalated into a legal dispute – it may well escalate again into a precedent-setting piece of case law, destined to grace Law of Tort textbooks for decades to come.

Even if Vardy v. Rooney doesn’t become the new Donoghue v. Stevenson, its most important lesson might be much more clear-cut: sometimes, it is best just to let things go. Whichever WAG comes out on top will walk away with nominal damages that are dwarfed by both legal costs and the decimation of their reputation. Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s legal battle, though concerned with much more serious allegations, reinforces the fact that dragged out legal disputes rarely have a true winner. The only victors I can point out in ‘Wagatha Christie’ are Cambridge’s current cohort of law students: rest assured, as long as there are embittered and ego-fuelled C-listers, their services will remain in demand.

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