High Profile Defamation Cases in 2020

Rebekah Vardy v Coleen Rooney

This case is still ongoing, but a significant milestone in the case was publicised in November 2020 when The Hon. Mr Justice Warby gave his judgment on the preliminary issue in Mrs Vardy’s claim against Mrs Rooney. The preliminary issue was – what was the single, natural and ordinary meaning of the words used in Mrs Rooney’s infamous Instagram posts published in October 2019?

The meaning of the words complained of is a fundamental aspect of any defamation claim and it is up to the court to assess and determine the natural and ordinary meaning, as a question of fact, by ruling on the meaning that the ordinary reasonable reader would find the words to bear. Once the meaning of the words has been established, the position and strength of each party’s case is a lot clearer. This can often lead to parties resolving and settling the claim, or, if the matter still cannot be resolved, each party will at least have a clearer understanding of what they will need to prove in order to succeed with their claim (or defence). This is why the meaning of the words complained of will usually be determined in a preliminary hearing, early on in proceedings, rather than at the trial itself.

Mrs Rooney’s posts, set over a series of individual Instagram stories, revealed in a “whodunnit” fashion that she had been troubled for a few years by someone leaking information about her and her family’s personal life to The Sun newspaper. The stories concluded with “I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person has viewed them. Its …..Rebekah Vardy’s account“. The Instagram posts and ensuing feud between Mrs Vardy and Mrs Rooney received a significant amount of press coverage.

In bringing her claim of defamation against Mrs Rooney, Mrs Vardy’s position was that the meaning of the words complained of (which included all eight posts published by Mrs Rooney) was:

“that the Claimant has consistently and repeatedly betrayed the Defendant’s trust over several years by leaking the Defendant’s private and personal Instagram posts and stories for publication in the Sun Newspaper including a story about gender selection in Mexico; a story about the Defendant returning to TV; and a story about the basement flooding in the Defendant’s new house.”

In response Mrs Rooney’s position was that the meaning of the words was:

“there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the Claimant was responsible for consistently passing on information about the Defendant’s private Instagram posts and stories to The Sun newspaper.”

Unfortunately for Mrs Rooney, The Hon. Mr Justice Warby agreed with Mrs Vardy and stated in his judgment ” The whole purpose of the post, on the face of it, is to identify publicly the someone, the person whom Ms Rooney has “clearly” identified as being guilty of the serious and consistent breach of trust that she alleges. The ordinary reader would not regard the post as merely telling him or her who it is that Ms Rooney suspects, or as simply raising Ms Vardy’s guilt as no more than one possibility, among others……….the reader is told early on that Ms Rooney formed a suspicion; the rest of the post is telling the reader how she established the truth. And there is “no hint” in the post that Ms Vardy’s account could be accessed or operated by anyone other than the named account holder. I do not consider that the “hint” can be supplied by resorting to alleged “common knowledge” that people like Ms Vardy have teams to curate their social media output. “

Part of Mrs Rooney’s defence is that the contents of her posts on social media were true. In light of this preliminary ruling, in order for that defence to be successful, Mrs Rooney will need to prove that her posts, when read with the meaning determined by the Hon. Mr Justice Warby, were substantially true.

Although this does not mean that Mrs Vardy has been successful in her defamation claim against Mrs Rooney, in light of this Judgment, currently the score appears to be 1 – 0 to Mrs Vardy. We will continue to monitor and report on this case as it progresses.