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  4. This case has been an object lesson why I have never employed an agent or publicist.

    On a more serious note, RV will probably find work as the Evil Queen in panto for a couple of years, but really her “brand” (aargh!) is hopelessly Donald Ducked. Wonder how long it will be before Jamie V – fast nearing the end of his career and now saddled with UKĀ£3,000,000 in legal fees – jettisons her.

    As Kitty Muggeridge memorably said of David Frost she “rose without trace” and sink without trace she duly will, too

    • The object lesson I learnt is never be an agent or publicist. Vardy blamed Caroline Watt but I think she was following the wishes of the client. As did the judge.

      Interestingly, Rebekah met Jamie when she was a publicist herself, for a nightclub.

    • There is a further object lesson – donā€™t leak your ā€œfriendā€™sā€ private info to the red-tops, then lie about it later, sue for libel when you know the contested allegation was substantially correct, then lie again in courtā€¦

      As you point out in the OP tags, Tiggs – hubris.

      • There is that. It makes you think that she is either psychotic or has a vanishingly small IQ.

        Coleen posted “it’s……..Rebekah Vardy’s account” and an earlier hearing decided Coleen had to prove that Rebekah Vardy, herself, was responsible for the leaks not just people with access to her account. That bar seemed excessively high until Vardy got on the witness stand and opened her trout-lipped mouth.

        • No. The judge stopped just short of calling her a liar.

          There was one priceless exchange though

          RV: “If I’m being honest…”

          Judge: “I sincerely hope you are being honest, Mrs. Vardy, you’re giving evidence in the High Court”

          • She stopped short out of politeness.

            David Sherbourne, Coleen’s barrister, disproved Vardy’s evidence simply by quoting her WhatsApp messages. “Do you leak stories to the press?” ” No. ” ” Then, what does your message ‘leak it’ mean?”

  5. This was amusing.
    ā€œI never believed it should have gone to court at such expense ā€¦ when the money could have been far better spent helping othersā€ā€¦. Damn all that money earmarked for The Save The Children Fund has had to go on legal fees.

    She goes on to say she ā€œbears Ms Vardy no ill willā€. Gimme a break.

  6. After a few years of public monstering, RV will probably kill herself and we’ll all be talking very ponderously about the price of fame and lessons need to be learned and all that shite. These people are very fucked up indeed, I don’t think we should forget that.

  7. Imagine being married to a multi millionaire footballer like Jamie Vardy and feeling the best thing you can do with your time is try and stitch up another famous footballer’s wife and then when you’re found out drag it to this conclusion. I’m no fan of the Rooney’s dysfunctional marriage and cannot understand Colleen staying with serial adulterer multi millionaire Wayne but she’s played a blinder with a no lose hand here. Was it worth it? Absolutely to all the wrong people who cashed and will cash in…

  8. As a side comment, there’s a clip on YouTube with 100 Jamie Vardy goals which is fun to watch. Left wing, right wing, through the middle, head, either foot, bundle in the box, 60yd screamer… they’re all there.

    • Here’s Wayne Rooney’s for Everton, pre and post Man U. I was there for his first against Arsenal and his later 60 yarder against West Ham. The thing that struck me was the way he always seemed to keep the ball down. Very few tap-ins.

          • It’s more than tabloid fodder. This is possibly the most catastrophic libel case since Oscar Wilde sued the Marquees of Queensberry, an act of folly that bankrupted Wilde and directly led him to being incarcerated for two years with hard labour. After his release, he spent three years impoverished and in exile in France. He died of meningitis, possibly related to an ear injury he sustained in jail.

            Rebekah Vardy has some way to go to match that but there’s only one thing in this world worse than being talked about…

              • PS Tiggs, Oz’s biggest mistake was not realising that… [re-reads your post, to be double-sure]… the Marquees of Queensbury was… [wait for it, here it comes, hold onto something solid]…a really…in tents…guy!!!1!! Geddit?? Marquees?? In tents???

                No?!!!

                Oh fck off then, ya red-nosed bastud.

  10. Absolutely worth it. To see 2 thickos scrapping it out in public over something completely inconsequential wasting millions in the process (for Vardy)

  11. My brother knows one of RVā€™s ex-husbands. Not a lot of nice things to say. Jamie Vardy is the most detestable footballers Iā€™ve seen at Oakwell in a long, long time, so itā€™s nice to see he has found his perfect soulmate.

    • This.
      The list of players capable of making John Terry seem like Keanu Reeves in the ā€˜great human beingā€™ stakes is pretty short, but Vardyā€™s on it.

        • Well, for starters, when he played away matches for Stocksbridge, wearing his ankle tag, he had to be subbed at half-time so that he could get home in time for his curfew.

          Heā€™s the only player Iā€™ve seen at Oakwell who has wound me up enough to want to run on and punch him, and Iā€™ve never hit anybody in my life. He is one of those players who will go out of his way to celebrate in front of the opposing fans, goading them. I donā€™t understand why players running up to their own fans get booked for ā€˜inciting the crowdā€™ and yet deliberately running up to and goading the opposition fans with hand gestures and that cuppy ear thing he does is perfectly allowable.

          • Allegedly it’s because they give him so much abuse he scores goals then winds them up. Quite funny to the unaligned observer. But I can imagine how irritating it is.

          • From what I’ve heard, he turned his life around after his first child was born and joining Leicester. He used to turn up to training still drunk from the night before but gave up drinking after he was subject to a quiet word. His career arc is remarkable.

            He’s involved in a number of charities, which are all about disadvantaged children getting a better start. My bet is that they are close to his heart.

            • Donā€™t get me wrong, there are players who have made gestures to the home fans at Oakwell that I have no problem with. Nathan Blakeā€™s shutting up of the racism in the bad old days for starters, or Paul Stancliffeā€™s response after Sheffield United scored a 120th minute winner. But Vardy wasnā€™t getting any abuse until he did what he did, repeatedly, although it was just typical of a graceless club on the pitch, in the stands and in the boardroom. Leicester have since become my least liked club in the country (yes, even more than Dirty Leeds), and my timing was impeccable, with them winning the league and cup within a few years!

              • They are responsible for the only shock in 30 years of the Premier League.

                Did you know that only two man-made things on the Earth are visible from the Moon?
                (1) The Chinese Wall.
                (2) The egg on the faces of Tottenham, Arsenal, Man. Utd. etc. when Leicester won the Premier League in 2015-16. It’s still there.

                On Vardy… one of the very last Championship games I saw happened to involve Leicester City, about 10/12 years ago, and he was brilliant.

                Said at the time, although I didn’t know him from a box of frogs, “F*** Rooney, put that guy in the World/Euro Cup side.”
                They didn’t and – spoiler alert – Rooney was complete shite for the 4th or 5th tournament running.

          • According to the Grauniad he apologized profusely and expressed regret. Unpleasant but everyone seems to have moved on. I’m not sure there’s any suggestion of similar behaviour since is there?

            • Well I may be old fashioned but I tend towards the old ā€˜leopards & spotsā€™ angle, & also that itā€™s fair to judge people by how they behave towards those who canā€™t serve them in any way.
              Vardy pleaded ignorance as a defence & outlined how upset heā€™d been when he realised how it must look.
              Thatā€™s horseshit IMO, just the same as folk who claim they only ā€˜did itā€™ because they were drunk. Usually more the case that the booze reveals their character & removed inhibition rather than creates the flaws in itself.
              I reckon heā€™s a wrong ā€˜un which is why he & his lovely lady wife are simpatico.

  12. How ironic that Jamie Vardy tried to copyright the phrase ‘Chat shit, get banged.’ If only Rebekah would have listened to his wise words before deciding to go through with this disastrous court case.

  13. My last surgery was built on the land owned and occupied by a Reg Vardy garage. He refused the bigger bid by MCDonalds. Other than that, and the Christian fundamentalism of the family patriarch, I know nothing about them. I havenā€™t followed football since Brighton &Hove Albion played at the Goldstone Ground.

  15. Something I found deeply confusing about the case is that from all the photos I saw, I literally could not tell the difference between Rebekah Vardy and Colleen Rooney.

    • I’ve pondered this for nearly a full day and I’m still not sure what it means.

      I have to say I am really impressed with the judge whose damn good sense shines through. There is no pulling the wool over her eyes. Similarly, the one whose deliberation and verdict was televised in the case of the young man who killed his grandfather. She was extremely thorough and extraordinarily measured given the circumstances of the case.

      • It’s a quotation from the thoroughly disreputable, and in many ways absolutely awful, Trippin’ in Court from the first Cheech and Chong album (the Dave’s Not Here Hitmakers). The Peepee in question belongs to one Lesley Horwinkel, telling you at a glance that this is a level of humour that makes mine look like Noel Coward.

          • More serious point in response to I have to say I am really impressed with the judge whose damn good sense shines through. There is no pulling the wool over her eyes. Similarly, the one whose deliberation and verdict was televised in the case of the young man who killed his grandfather. She was extremely thorough and extraordinarily measured given the circumstances of the case.

            There was a terrific piece in the Absurder yesterday about the televising of courts. I’ve always been against it but this guy’s thesis is that court proceedings are routinely misreported by lazy or malevolent journalists, and the only realistic antidote to this is full exposure of what goes on. It’s changed my mind – which was pretty entrenched – about this very big issue.

            https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/31/allow-tv-full-access-to-our-courtrooms-and-justice-will-truly-be-seen-to-be-done

            • Judge Sarah Munro certainly increased my confidence in the justice system.

              I watched Derek Chauvin’s trial with fascination. The judge said some very odd things. Maybe, I’m not tuned to American phraseology. Some of the defence expert witnesses struck me as professional opportunists. Nevertheless, the right result was achieved in the end.

              I’m all for televising court proceedings with the caveat of protecting vulnerable witnesses.

            • It’s really odd that the article above, while arguing for cameras in courtrooms, cites the O.J Simpson case. An instance in which the presence of cameras skewed proceedings enormously, transformed the trial into a three ring circus, and quite probably saw a murderer walk free.

              I would personally be cautious about introducing cameras in all but the most limited circumstances.

              • His argument is a product of desperation. If we’re going to have this constant “enemies of the people” narrative about the justice system, and we are, perhaps it’s the only possible corrective.

                • If his goal is accurate reporting, less culture war bollocks and greater respect for the institutions of law, he’ll find that TV cameras will only worsen all of those issues, as they have done in numerous US court cases.

                  Our courts are functioning pretty well. Our public discourse, on the other hand, is utterly fucked. The idea that greater exposure of the former to the latter will improve things is highly dubious.

                  • I remember the OJ trial. It was a major media event from the day of the murders. The sedate chase along the highway was watched by millions across the globe.

                    The trial took place months later. Putting together a jury took an age. The major influence on its make up was the shift from Santa Monica to downtown Los Angeles for safety reasons. As a result, Afro-Americans were in a majority. The jury were unable to view the media coverage, much easier to achieve in 1995.

                    Once the verdict was in, the public reaction, having watched the same TV programmes, was split along racial lines. White people largely felt it had been a fix and Black people mostly agreed with the Not Guilty outcome.

                    I doubt the screening of the trial itself affected the outcome. The media circus around it may well have polarised public opinion. OJ’s lawyers did a great job of casting doubt on the evidence. It helped them that a prominent white investigator used racist language regularly.

                    Trials are meant to be conducted in public. I can’t really see any objection to bringing the justice system into the 21st Century with the sensible use of TV cameras.

                    • The defence in the OJ trial used the media coverage to amp up racial tensions around the trial and its outcome. It’s very difficult to argue that the trial (or indeed wider society) benefited from media coverage.

                      More recently, we’ve seen the judge in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial being pulled to bits by the internet (including having his integrity questioned by virtue of his ring tone), and Amber Heard, undoubtedly a nasty piece of work, undergoing a live online character assassination during her recent court case. Those are just two examples from many. Neither judges or witnesses (or indeed claimants/defendants) benefit from being dragged down into the bearpit of online discourse, which is what will inevitably happen where trials are televised. Trial by meme.

                      Trials are indeed meant to be conducted in public, for very good reason. The logic behind those reasons does not automatically extend to televising them, which is why they largely haven’t been in this country to date.

                    • The Rittenhouse trial was politically loaded from the start. The judge may well have been targeted even without TV cameras. Amber Heard was going to be found out sooner or later.

                      Funnily enough, I see televising trials as a way of refuting the haterz. Online discourse is a bearpit anyway. Set that up against the largely measured discourse in a court and it looks stupid. Cameras are here to stay in America. Less so in this country. I think we are going to see more deliberations on our news bulletins.

  17. Without wishing to get self-reflexive/meta (ooh, go on then), Vardy was, reportedly, paying Ā£10,000 a day for her legal team. Surely any legal team with even a cursory knowledge of the law wouldā€™ve strongly encouraged her (if not outright refused to take the case) to drop it before it came to court. My knowledge of the law is based solely on having once dated a lawyer, where I overheard some long words: principally in Latin. Even I thought it stank of insanity to insist on going to court.
    Iā€™m sure there are some people from the legal profession on here. What does it do for your reputation if you coin in ten grand a day for a case you know you have zero chance of winning? Thatā€™s not to denigrate lawyers; Iā€™m genuinely curious.

    • I’ve done jury service once, on one case I was taken off as when the witness got in the stand he looked across at the jury saw me and waved. As I saw him getting in I explained to the clerk that I knew the witness, I had to be dismissed the judge said it was obvious the witness knew me. I found out the next day that another juror asked to be removed after as he was deaf and hadn’t heard a word said.
      The other case was so badly presented by the police and prosecution that we spent more time out of the court than in it. The judge eventually stopped it, apologised to us for having our time wasted and said he would write a strong letter to the Chief Constable.

      • Did jury service in Hong Kong on a murder trial (still then a capital offense although rarely used) in the mid-90s.

        The bare bones of the case were that the two kids in the dock were part of a triad gang that had become embroiled in a fight that resulted in a rival gang member’s death.

        The fact that the kids were underage when the murder took place and were being charged under joint endeavor (they obviously hadn’t ran away fast enough) made the case a very contentious one at the time.

        The trial only lasted for four days. As with HR above, most of this time was spent in the jury room while the defense and prosecution discussed legal fine points with the beak.

        Eventually, the defense and prosecution compromised on a manslaughter charge to which the kids entered guilty pleas.

        Juries in HK have only seven (rather than 12 members) of which I was the only Westerner.

        I’m sure you can guess who got elected foreman when the time came to read out the guilty verdicts to a court full of grieving family members and very aggrevied looking fellow triad members

  18. I was called for jury service many years ago in West Wales, but asked to be excused when I discovered that I knew the defendant. I was excused.
    A long time later I was again called for jury service in a fraud trial. It was very obvious as the case progressed that the two defendants were guilty and they eventually changed their plea to guilty as the evidence against them mounted. I got a bollocking from the judge on the second day when he noticed I was nodding off during a long piece of technical evidence.

      • I was a miscreant myself, as regards the smoking and cultivation of weed and the taking of certain other illegal recreational substances.
        The young woman in the Welsh court case had stabbed and killed her abusive husband (with a breadknife) and hidden his body in the cupboard under her stairs. She was initially charged with murder, but that charge was dropped mid-trial and eventually she pleaded guilty to failing to report the death and hiding the corpse. She was put on probation.

  19. Since we are here, talking about the Law – there’s something quite interesting I learn-ed ( ! ) only recently.

    When a wrinkled-up old judge interrupts proceedings by saying something like “Er…who is…(reads from notes over pince-nez glasses) ‘Shakin’ Stevens’?” – this is always jumped on by the tabloids as evidence of how out of touch judges are.

    It’s probable that the QC knows very well who Shakin’ Stevens is. He makes the interjection so that the court can officially record that he is a famous rock & roll singer. This helps someone in 100 years’ time understand what’s happening when Shaky’s fame has faded.

  21. She’s now gone on something called Talk TV to bemoan the unfairness of the UK judicial system and whinge about how her “ordeal” has left her with PTSD.

    She keeps digging herself in it at this rate, how long will it be someone like Simon Cowell gets her into the studio to record a cover version of Bernard Cribbins’ Hole in the Ground.

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