Wagatha Christie trial final day: The biggest developments as Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy's barristers give closing speeches

The Wagatha Christie libel trial finally rumbles to a close on Thursday after seven days of the inside story as they see it from warring WAGs Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy.

Both of the women's barristers will give their closing speeches after the trial having taken a break on Wednesday.

Read more: When does Love Island 2022 start?

The High Court will hear again many of the details from previous days, summing up the biggest points to consider in the case.

Coleen Rooney's team doesn't believe the WhatsApp messages were lost

One of the strangest details of the Wagatha Christie trial has been Rebekah Vardy's claims that she could not provide vital evidence of WhatsApp messages to her agent Caroline Watt about alleged leaks of Rooney's Instagram posts because she managed to lose them while exporting them.

Vardy has said the messages disappeared in the process of being exported to a laptop; when asked to provide the laptop for recovery, she said it was broken and had been thrown out; when Watt was asked to provide her phone for a copy of the messages, it had apparently been dropped in the North Sea.

Read more: Wagatha Christie timeline - how the libel battle played out

Rooney's barrister David Sherborne made it clear he did not believe the messages were genuinely lost as he said: "It simply was not possible for what she claims happened to cause the loss of data on the device.

“Try as she might, Mrs Vardy’s counsel put the question again and again to no avail. It is not a possibility.”

Mr Sherborne said there was “only one conclusion”, that Vardy had deliberately destroyed parts of the chat, adding: “It was done to cover up incriminating evidence.”

On the loss of Watt’s phone, he said the “first we heard of the phone being dropped into the water was four months after”.

He continued: “This ill-fated trip took place only days after the court had requested her phone to be inspected.”

The barrister said that as there are two copies of any WhatsApp chat, Watt’s phone would have contained a full copy of what had been lost from Vardy’s phone and added: “It was therefore, we say, necessary for both to be destroyed. RIP Ms Watt’s phone."

Vardy's barrister Hugh Tomlinson later denied this as a "conspiracy theory" and added: "We have no idea as to whether this is a genuine accidental loss of a device or whether it was something done cynically and deliberately to avoid inspection during the disclosure process. We just don’t know. From Mrs Vardy’s point of view, she does not know either."

Coleen Rooney's team say the Vardys are unreliable witnesses

Mr Sherborne also took aim at Rebekah Vardy's footballer husband Jamie, who appeared once at court for a brief visit during the trial.

He did not give evidence, but did have a statement read out outside of court calling Wayne Rooney's witness statement that he had been asked to speak to teammate Vardy to tell his wife to "calm down" nonsense.

Read more: Peter Andre endured years of mocking over Rebekah Vardy 'chipolata' jibe

But Mr Sherborne said: “Of course it is not lost on the court that he was willing to give a press statement while not under oath, he was unwilling to give one for these proceedings.”

Turning back to the subject of Rebekah Vardy, Mr Sherborne said she had given “implausible, throwaway explanations,” during her time in the witness box.

He said: “Mrs Vardy’s suggestion that she was unaware of Ms Watt leaking information from Mrs Rooney’s Instagram account is completely unsustainable in the face of Ms Watt’s message ‘it was me’.”

Vardy previously told the court she did not respond to this message because she was bathing her children and then discussed Gemma Collins “face-planting” on Dancing On Ice.

Mr Sherborne said: “Improbable enough we say, but particularly so (given) that the answer to her earlier answer in my cross-examination was that she didn’t really watch television.”

Rebekah Vardy's team points the finger at Caroline Watt

Hugh Tomlinson, representing Rebekah Vardy, appeared to shift the blame onto Caroline Watt, saying Vardy now accepts the possibility that her friend and former agent may have been the source of the leaks.

He told the court: “She does not want to be in the position of accusing her friend and former long-time agent of doing something wrong.”

Mr Tomlinson added: “Mrs Vardy has made mistakes. Perhaps the most serious of these may have been to trust Ms Watt as her agent.”

Read more: Ronan Keating flustered as he's asked if daughter is going on Love Island

Addressing the lost WhatsApp messages, he said: “It’s not alleged either that Mrs Vardy pushed the phone into the North Sea or indeed that she had anything to do with it at all. The suggestion that somehow this is an aspect of the conspiracy to delete evidence, we say, is misconceived.

“We don’t know the truth of Ms Watt’s position. We have no idea as to whether this is a genuine accidental loss of a device or whether it was something done cynically and deliberately to avoid inspection during the disclosure process. We just don’t know. From Mrs Vardy’s point of view, she does not know either."

Rebekah Vardy 'was just gossiping, not leaking'

Mr Tomlinson said that while Vardy might have used the word "leaking", the information she provided to journalists was actually just "gossip".

He told the court: “The position is clear, really. From time to time, Mrs Vardy and Ms Watt used the language of leaking. Your ladyship has to decide what they meant by that. We say in some cases it is just loose language that isn’t really about leaking at all.”

He added: “What actually is happening is that they are gossiping. They are talking about passing on pieces of gossip to the newspapers.”

Mr Tomlinson said of Mrs Vardy: “Yes, she’s prepared from time to time to discuss providing information to the newspapers about specific incidents and about specific people.

“Is that so similar as to what’s alleged here as to be logically probative that she disclosed information from the private Instagram? We say no... What’s actually happening is they are gossiping."

It also seemed the "calm down" conversation could have happened as Mr Tomlinson talked about the possibility of Vardy having arranged a paparazzi photo outside of a restaurant at the 2016 Euros.

He said: “It shows a completely different type of activity, arranging a photograph. Maybe Mr Hodgson was upset and maybe Mr Rooney was told to talk to Mr Vardy, but we say it takes the case nowhere at all and it is certainly not an example of leaking.”

Rebekah Vardy is seeking 'substantial damages'

Before the end of his closing arguments, Mr Tomlinson addressed the issue of damages he said Vardy was entitled to.

He told the court: “This is a serious and extremely upsetting matter that’s been a great burden on her and her family over the post two and a half years.

“The defence of this case has been conducted in an extremely aggressive fashion. She’s been threatened with contempt proceedings, she’s been accused of conspiracy to deceive the court, conspiracy to destroy evidence.”

Mr Tomlinson said the “forceful” cross-examination of Vardy in the trial was “very upsetting” for her. He claimed that “serious harm to her reputation has been caused, the award of damages ought to reflect that”.

The barrister said he did not want to “bandy figures about the court”, adding that Vardy was entitled to “substantial libel damages” to “compensate her for the caused by the defamatory publication”.

Watch: Rebekah Vardy arrives for Wagatha Christie final showdown