the times | Saturday April 30 2022 19
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being overwhelmed. When it is finished
the super sewer will have cost about
£4.2 billion.
Most Londoners will consider that
money well spent if the tunnel does
what is designed to do and stops
untreated sewage from spilling into the
Thames. At present the overspills are
equivalent to a stomach-turning 8 bil-
lion lavatory flushes a year.
“We shouldn’t blame Bazalgette for
that,” Mousa Khalifeh, a senior project
manager, said. “London had a popula-
tion of 2 million in his day.
“He built sewers with a capacity for
4 million. Now they have to cater for8 million.” The Victorians built infra-
structure to last. Bazalgette’s sewers are
approaching their 150th birthday.
How long will the new super sewer
serve London’s ever-growing needs?
Khalifeh said: “It is guaranteed for 120
years... but I hope it will last a lot longer
than that.”DOMINIC LIPINSKI/PAVardy admits agent
may have leaked
stories on Rooney
Kieran GairThe “Wagatha Christie” libel case,
which has pitted the wives of two
former England footballers against
each other, took another twist yester-
day when Rebekah Vardy conceded
that her agent may have leaked stories
about Coleen Rooney to The Sun.
Previously Vardy, the wife of Jamie
Vardy, 35, the Leicester City striker, had
denied being the source of leaks to the
newspaper. She is suing Rooney, the
wife of Wayne Rooney, 36, England and
Manchester United’s record goalscorer,
for libel.
In October 2019, after a “sting opera-
tion”, Rooney, also 36, said Vardy, 40,
had been giving “false stories”about her
private life to the media. The quarrel
earned Rooney the sobriquet “Wagat-
ha Christie” — playing on the acronym
for footballers’ wives and girlfriends.
Rooney’s lawyers claim that Vardy
used Caroline Watt, her friend and
agent, for the leaks, “acting on her
instruction or with her approval”.
In an updated witness statement,
Vardy said: “I have to accept that it is
possible that [the agent] may have had
some form of involvement that I don’t
know about. I still find it hard to believe,
given all her denials and her support to
me during the case, but I can’t under-stand why the journalists would indi-
cate otherwise.”
David Sherborne, Rooney’s barrister,
told the High Court yesterday that Var-
dy’s new statement “suggests Ms Watt
was the source of the leak but claims
that [Vardy] ‘did not authorise or con-
done her’.” Despite the legal process
having lasted almost three years, Sher-
borne said that it was only on Wednes-
day that Vardy conceded it was possible
Watt had been the “source”.
He said: “The collapse of Mrs Vardy’s
case over the last day has been remark-
able. Mrs Vardy appears now to accept
Mrs Rooney’s case: that Caroline Watt... was the conduit by which stories
from the defendant’s private Instagram
account were leaked to The Sun
through her access via Rebekah Vardy’s
account. It has become undeniably
obvious that Ms Watt is the source and
Mrs Vardy, true to form, says ‘It wasn’t
me... and I didn’t know anything about
what was going on.’ ”
Hugh Tomlinson QC, for Vardy, told
the court that her new statement did
not contain “any change whatsoever in
the pleaded case”. He said: “We simply
don’t know what the true position is in
relation to Ms Watt. She’s not commu-
nicating with anybody.”
The hearing, before Mrs Justice
Steyn, continues.