Wagatha Christie trial live: Lawyers giving closing arguments for Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney | UK News

Today was the day we finally got to hear from Wayne Rooney, former England captain. What did he think of Wagatha Christie?

Well as it happens he told the court he didn’t know much about his wife’s sting operation; more headline grabbing were his comments relating to Rebekah Vardy’s alleged conduct during Euro 2016.

“She was almost there with the team, she was there a lot,” he said.

Remember, Rebekah Vardy is accused of sitting behind Coleen Rooney during a match, even though that wasn’t her seat – apparently it would be good publicity.

It got to the point, Mr Rooney told the court, that the England manager [at the time it was Roy Hodgson] and coach Gary Neville intervened…

“They asked me to, as captain, would I be able to speak to Mr Vardy on issues regarding his wife and I think we all knew we spoke about it, it was an awkward subject.”

Mr Rooney said he asked “him to ask his wife to calm down and not bring any issues off the field that were unnecessary”.

His recollection of the chat, as well as it being very, very awkward, was that Jamie had a can of Red Bull – although a few hours later the testament, given under oath, was refuted.

“Wayne is talking nonsense,” Jamie Vardy’s representatives said outside court. “He must be confused because he never spoke to me about issues concerning Becky’s media work at Euro 2016.”

We saw the two former international teammates exchange a nod before proceedings began, then Wayne told those present that he never regarded Jamie as a friend outside of football – hence he didn’t bring up the alleged leaked stories with him.

There are no cameras in UK courts to film all of this, but we do have court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook to capture the scene…

Rooney (Wayne) also spoke about the impact the case had had on his wife.

“I’ve watched my wife over the past two, two and a half years, really struggle with everything that’s gone on… become a different mother, a different wife.

“It’s been very traumatic for my wife.”

We also got to see court documents showing the fake stories that Coleen concocted and that Rebekah Vardy’s account viewed (see 12.19 post). Also in there was this little nugget: Wayne’s personal Instagram account is called Wazzaroon08.

Just before lunch we heard from Claire Rooney’s – who definitely isn’t Wayne’s sister. Accompanying the in-person evidence during the trial are witness statements, and Ms Rooney’s mentions the messages between Rebekah Vardy and agent Caroline Watt which refer to “Wayne’s chavvy sister”.

“Wayne doesn’t have a sister and so I assume that Caroline Watt is referring to me as Wayne’s cousin and because I still have the Rooney surname. I have never met Caroline Watt in my life, nor have I ever spoken to her. I am not aware that Coleen has either.” Oof.

This afternoon we heard from Penny Adaarewa, a PR consultant who claims she overheard a Splash News photographer implying that he had access to Rebekah Vardy’s account and that Ms Vardy knew he was feeding stories to the press. “This is nonsense, isn’t it,” said lawyer Hugh Tomlinson, for Vardy.

This afternoon we turned to expert witnesses for both sides, with investigator Matthew Blackband, for Rooney, suggesting the WhatsApp messages between Mrs Vardy and her agent Ms Watt were, in his opinion, likely deleted manually (and not accidentally) ahead of this trial.