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Becky Vardy reveals Coleen Rooney left her feeling suicidal over Wagatha Christie row, explosive court docs claim
BECKY Vardy was left suicidal after Coleen Rooney sparked an online hate campaign against her, a sensational High Court writ claims.
Documents allege that Coleen’s post accusing “Wagatha Christie” rival Becky of leaking stories was “designed to cause very serious harm and enormous distress”.
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Pregnant Rebekah also feared she’d lose her baby due to stress from the social media storm caused by Coleen Rooney’s post.
Becky says she had to call cops and pull her “bullied” eldest daughter out of school after Coleen, 34, accused her of leaking stories about her and footie ace hubby Wayne.
Becky, 38, says the post on Twitter and Instagram last October unleashed a barrage of social media abuse — including death threats and trolls branding her a “grass”, “bitch” and “snake”.
Her stress was so bad she “had concerns about losing her baby or going into early labour”, her lawyers say.
She suffered severe anxiety attacks and insomnia and was taken to hospital three times.
Her husband, England and Leicester City striker Jamie, 33, was mocked at games.
Becky’s lawyers claim Coleen’s “malicious” 230-word post was written in a “calculated and deliberate manner” and “designed to cause very serious harm and enormous distress”.
Mum-of-five Becky insists she was not the source for a series of stories published in The Sun.
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Twitter users linked her to IS and even suggested she was now the prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case.
The reaction was so great that at one point Becky’s name was being searched on Google more often than “Brexit”, lawyers claim.
It left Becky “suicidal” while seven months pregnant and suffering from “extreme distress, hurt, anxiety and embarrassment”.
Her eldest daughter had to be withdrawn from school as “she was being bullied as a result”, the 15-page writ reveals. Experts say the court battle could cost the parties a total of £1million.
Becky has paid a fee of £10,528.
Under court rules, it means she is seeking unlimited damages of more than £200,000 for libel from Coleen, her one-time friend.
The pair tried mediation to avoid a costly court battle. But after it failed Becky, who wanted a full public apology, hired top London lawyers and filed her claim formally on June 12.
The lawsuit describes how mum-of-four Coleen posted her claims on her Instagram account, which has 885,000 followers, and Twitter, which has 1.2million.
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Coleen used the platforms to set out how one of her friends had allegedly been leaking stories about her.
She wrote: “After a long time of trying to figure out who it could be for various reasons, I had a suspicion.”
Coleen claimed she had posted a series of false stories via her Instagram account with restricted access to see if they appeared in the media, which they did.
All the stories which were subsequently printed in The Sun were put to Coleen’s representatives for comment.
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Her post said the fake stories had only been viewed by one person and ended dramatically: “It’s . . Rebekah Vardy’s account.”
Becky’s lawyers say the post suggested she had “repeatedly betrayed” Coleen’s trust over several years by leaking her private and personal information.
They included stories about Coleen apparently looking into gender selection treatment in Mexico because she wanted a baby girl, a story about Coleen returning to TV and a story about her new basement flooding.
Becky’s writ says the accusation caused “very serious harm” to her reputation, going to the heart of her “personality, integrity and honesty”.
It says Coleen “knew and intended” for the post to go viral and it did so at “enormous scale”.
Apart from forming the basis of newspaper, magazine and TV coverage, the post had three times the number of Twitter mentions as Boris Johnson, research showed.
And Becky’s lawyers added: “The claimant suffered, and continues to suffer, severe and extreme hostility and abuse as a result of the post.
“She has been targeted by online trolls and attacked on social media platforms including but not limited to Twitter and Instagram; as well as via readers’ comments on articles relating to the post.
“The abuse was so extreme that the claimant was forced to use filters on her Instagram account to prevent certain words from being published under her posts.”
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Papers say the blocked words included “bitch”, “grass”, “rat”, “sl*g”, “s**t”, “snake” and “snitch”.
One message sent on Instagram read: “You fat ugly f***ing rat I genuinely hope you and your baby rot and die an extremely painful death for what you have done.
“You was a f***ing horrible c*** in the (I’m A Celebrity) jungle and I’m not shocked to hear you’ve been exposed properly now.
“Do everyone a f***ing favour and jump off a cliff (preferably before you give birth). W****r.”
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Another read: “Yo snitch I hope your baby gets put in a microwave and ur husband shags some other bird. Your baby deserves to put in the incinerator and so do you, fat nosed c*** I hope childbirth hurts.”
Becky’s lawsuit claims Coleen’s post exposes her to public contempt and the “effects continue to date”.
Her lawyers say: “The abuse following the publication of the post has included threats of a criminal nature directed against the claimant which she reported to the police.”
They add: “The claimant reasonably believed that the defendant published the post in a calculated and deliberate manner that was designed to cause very serious harm and enormous distress.
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“The defendant did not contact the claimant prior to publication but published the post to millions of people without checking with the claimant whether the allegations were true or giving the claimant an opportunity to explain her position.
“As the defendant knew, the claimant was seven months pregnant and on holiday abroad with her family when the post was published.
"The claimant’s distress has been justifiably heightened by the defendant’s conduct which she reasonably believed was malicious.
“The claimant will rely upon . . . the reasonable belief that she has deliberately been made a scapegoat by the defendant for past ‘leaked’ stories that have been published about the defendant and her husband, in particular about their marriage, which have in fact come from the defendant’s friends, at times even with the defendant’s approval.”
Becky was called a snake and a grass and Twitter users even suggested she was the prime suspect in the Maddie McCann case.
Becky’s lawyers also attack Coleen’s claims on the leaked stories in detail.
Coleen claimed she had blocked all followers apart from Becky from seeing her account before posting a series of fake stories.
That meant Becky had to be the culprit, she claimed.
But Becky's legal team says “a substantial number of individuals” were able to see Coleen’s fake post about her interest in gender selection — because it was put up before Coleen blocked everyone else.
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The lawyers also slam Coleen’s claims that “every false story” led to an article in The Sun.
They add: “There were numerous false stories posted by the defendant between April and early October 2019 which did not result in publications.”
Becky — who gave birth to her and Jamie’s third child Olivia Grace in December — reveals she contacted Coleen soon after the post and spoke to her on the phone. Becky insisted she was not the source of the leaks.
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But despite “being told the allegation was false”, Coleen “has not apologised for, nor sought to correct in any way, her very public accusation that the claimant has leaked stories about her to The Sun”.
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Becky is claiming aggravated damages for libel and costs, the documents show.
She also wants an injunction against Coleen and her team from publishing the information again.
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Rebekah Vardy breaks down in tears and reveals Coleen Rooney feud put her in hospital and was ‘worst time of her life’
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