Rebekah Vardy ordered to pay £1.5m towards Coleen Rooney's 'Wagatha Christie' legal costs

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Rebekah Vardy is going to have to pay Coleen Rooney £1.5million in legal costs - and she will need to hand the cash over by next month.

It comes after she lost the "Wagatha Christie" High Court case she brought against her fellow footballer's wife. Mrs Vardy, 40, lost her high-profile libel claim against Mrs Rooney, 36, in July when Mrs Justice Steyn ruled that Mrs Rooney's viral social media post accusing Mrs Vardy of leaking her private information to the press was "substantially true", writes the Mirror.

In an order made public on Tuesday, the judge ruled that Mrs Vardy should pay 90% of Mrs Rooney's costs.In a statement, Mrs Justice Steyn stated the total legal bill which Coleen is yet to finalise with the court but was estimated by Coleen's lawyer, Paul Lunt, is estimated to be around £1.66million.But Mrs Justice Steyn explained that she had done "the best" she can to "estimate the likely level of recovery" but while bearing in mind that the defendant had not yet produced a bill, the cost would be around £800,000.She wrote of Rebekah's action: "The claim has been dismissed.

The defendant succeeded in establishing that the essence of the libel was ­substantially true."A court document obtained by The Mirror revealed that Coleen wanted 100% of her legal fees reimbursed but Rebekah wanted to pay the sum of 80% after the judge had found in her favour for several matters disputed at the trial.The document goes on to state that the defendant had originally sought payment of £1.25million but this figure was later dropped to £ 1 million.Rebekah (claimant) contends that the payment should be £361,174 if it was to total 80% of the costs or £451,468 if all of the costs are to be paid on a standard basis.Should this turn to an