Coleen Rooney poses for family photograph on holiday after missing last day of libel trial

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Wayne Rooney has shared a family photograph of himself and wife Coleen on holiday with their children, after the couple missed the last day of her High Court battle with Rebekah Vardy.

Coleen was absent from court on Thursday 19 May to hear closing arguments in the libel trial brought by Vardy.

At the time, it was reported that Coleen and her husband had jetted off on a pre-booked holiday with their sons, Kai, 12, Klay, 9, Kit, 6, and Cass, 4.

On Monday 23 May, Wayne shared a photograph of the family to his Instagram, adding an emoji of a camera and a love heart in the caption.

The photograph shows the family smiling at the camera, with Coleen dressed in an off-the-shoulder blue mini dress.

Rooney became embroiled in legal action after she accused Vardy’s Instagram account of leaking “false stories” about her to the tabloid press.

In a tweet, posted in October 2019, Rooney implied that Vardy had been sharing posts from her private Instagram account with The Sun newspaper.

Rooney said she had grown suspicious that someone whom she “trusted” had been behind the leaks. In a bid to catch out who was sharing the information, the social media sleuth had restricted access to who could see posts to her private Instagram Story.

“After a long time of trying to figure out who it could be, for various reasons, I had a suspicion. To try and prove this, I came up with an idea,” she wrote in a lengthy post.

“Over the past five months I have posted a series of false stories to see if they made their way into The Sun newspaper. And you know what, they did!”

She alleged: “Now I know for certain which account / individual it’s come from. I have saved and screenshotted all the original stories which clearly show just one person has viewed them. It’s ……………. Rebekah Vardy’s account.”

The post quickly went viral and the moment became known as “Wagatha Christie” for Rooney’s complex investigation.

Vardy denied the allegations, sharing a statement on her own Twitter account that she “never” speaks to journalists about Rooney and that she is “so upset” by the accusation.

“If you thought this was happening you could have told me and I could have changed passwords to see if it stopped,” she wrote.

“Over the years various people have had access to my [Instagram] and just this week I found out I was following people I didn’t know and have never followed myself.

“I’m disgusted that I’m even having to deny this. You should have called me the first time this happened.”

After a seven-day trial at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Mrs Justice Steyn has now retired to consider her judgement in the case.