The wife of footballer Jamie Vardy was ordered to make an interim payment of £800,000 within the next six weeks after she lost the so-called Wagatha Christie trial.

Mrs Vardy must also pay the legal costs of seven journalists from The Sun who were named in the case.

Mrs Rooney is expected to receive £1.5m in total over the case. The total legal bill is expected to be more than £3m.

Mrs Justice Steyn in the High Court said that Mrs Vardy must make the payments on an indemnity basis, requiring her to pay a larger proportion of the winner’s costs than the usual 70-75 per cent.

The judge said: “What takes this case out of the norm… is that in my judgment following the trial I found that the claimant (and also her former agent) had deliberately deleted or destroyed evidence.

“Such behaviour is outside the ordinary and reasonable conduct of proceedings. In all the circumstances, I consider it appropriate to order the claimant to pay costs on the indemnity basis.”

Mrs Vardy claimed she deleted relevant WhatAapp messages by accident. Her former agent, Caroline Watt, said she could not hand over her own WhatsApp messages with Mrs Vardy as she had dropped her phone — into the North Sea.

Paul Lunt, partner and head of litigation at Brabners, said: “The High Court has today decided that Rebekah Vardy must pay Coleen Rooney’s legal costs on an indemnity basis — the highest basis that the court could order.

“The reasoning given for this decision is that there was a finding that Rebekah Vardy had deliberately deleted or destroyed evidence.”