‘Hung like a chipolata’: Trial between soccer WAGS begins

Coleen Rooney glared across a courtroom at Rebekah Vardy yesterday as the £3million “Wagatha Christie” libel trial began with a series of lurid and sensational claims.

Mrs Vardy told how she feared she would lose her unborn baby after her rival Wag accused her of leaking stories.

Meanwhile, Mrs Rooney’s lawyer confronted Mrs Vardy with a newspaper interview in which she gave intimate details of a sexual encounter with pop star Peter Andre and mocked the size of his manhood.

The warring Wags finally came face to face at the High Court in London for a trial in which ‘mudslinging’ threatens to besmirch both their reputations.

Mrs Vardy, who was seven months pregnant at the time, said she suffered “strange palpitations” and “contraction-type pains” after Mrs Rooney took to Twitter to publicly accuse her of betraying her trust.

Giving evidence on the first day of the trial, she said she was admitted to hospital three times in the final two months of her pregnancy and was left feeling suicidal and suffering severe anxiety.

Mrs Vardy, 40, who is married to Leicester and former England footballer Jamie Vardy, launched legal action after Mrs Rooney accused her of leaking stories from her private Instagram account to The Sun newspaper.

She said she was labelled a “grass” and was subjected to vile abuse and death threats from trolls who said her baby should be “put in an incinerator”.

She likened Mrs Rooney, the wife of former Manchester United and England captain Wayne Rooney, to a “school bully” and said she had effectively turned the other footballers’ wives and girlfriends against her.

Mrs Rooney, 36, glowered at her rival as she denied she was responsible for the leaked stories, saying it was ‘not nice’ to betray other people’s confidences.

During the hearing, Mrs Vardy was confronted with a front page article from the News of the World, headlined “Peter’s hung like a small chipolata”, in which she described Mr Andre’s physique and shaven body hair.

Mrs Vardy admitted she had not asked for permission to reveal such personal details, or warned the reality television star that she had done so.

She was asked if she felt it was “respectful” for her to have discussed the intimate details, and said she had been forced to give the interview by an abusive ex-partner, and claimed he was paid for the 2004 article.

She told the High Court: “I was forced into a situation by my ex to do the story. It’s something I deeply regret and something that’s very much part of my past. It’s not nice to read”.

Lawyer David Sherborne, for Mrs Rooney, read excerpts from the article, in which it was claimed Mr Andre managed “just five minutes of sex with Rebekah” had “the smallest trouser equipment I’ve ever seen” .

He asked if she respected other people’s privacy.

She replied: “Yes, I do”.

Mr Sherborne said: “The problem is that you believe you decide when someone’s private information should be leaked or not”.

Mrs Vardy insisted she had been forced into discussing her encounter with Mr Andre, adding: “I understand why this being used. To me this is mudslinging and I was also threatened with mud-slinging by Mrs Rooney’s team”.

She denied she had discussed leaking a separate story, about another celebrity, over claims the unnamed star had used the computer program Photoshop to appear slimmer in photographs.

Mrs Vardy said she had not intended to leak a story about the Photoshop celebrity, but had wanted to do her own article about body positivity.