EXCLUSIVE: Rooney's lawyer defends stay at 5-star Nobu hotel

_{This wasn't what Lunt's hotel stay was like.}

Coleen Rooney's lawyer has defended his luxury accommodation in the so-called Wagatha Christie trial.

Brabners' Paul Lunt stayed at the 5-star Nobu London hotel in 2022 while successfully defending Rebekah Vardy's libel lawsuit.

The Supreme Court found it was “substantially true” that Vardy had leaked Rooney's private information to the press and ordered her to pay 90% of Rooney's legal fees.

But the couple's lawyers returned to court this October after Vardy challenged Rooney's £1.8million bill, which far exceeded the “agreed costs budget” of around £570,000.

Vardy's lawyer, Jamie Carpenter KC, described some of the items as “extraordinary” and cited Lunt's stay at the Nobu Hotel as a prime example. He said the lawyer “incurred significant dinner and drink fees and minibar fees” and joked that other lawyers would have to “make do with the West End DoubleTree.”

Continued interest in the Footballer's Wives saga led to the allegations about Lunt's stay being featured on the front page of The Sun on Monday (headline: “Blagatha – BECKY: IT'S CRAZY COL LAWYERS CAN TAKE ME THE MINI BAR INVOICE”).

Rooney's lawyer Robin Dunne said the allegations were “factually incorrect” and that Lunt had originally booked into a “modest” hotel but the Wi-Fi and shower were broken so he moved to Nobu, only after Rooney's agent gave a discount Prices received were around £229 for a room worth £650.

Lunt's stay was “not a scene from Caligula,” he added, pointing out that Lunt didn't even eat dinner at the adjacent Nobu restaurant, while his personal minibar consumption amounted to two bottles of water during a week-long stay, so to £7.

This week Lunt was back in London for the costs hearing, and before Carpenter or the tabloids get an idea, RollOnFriday can reveal he stayed in a budget hotel for £85 a night.

Lunt told ROF that after a day in court on Monday it was a shock to find he was on the front page of The Sun.

And ironically: he said he read the “misunderstood” article about his “selfish and wasteful behavior as a 'Fat Cat' lawyer” over a £3.60 Tesco meal deal, alone in a hotel room with no window or Furniture and “so tiny that only three”. one of the four sides of the bed touched a wall. (Although he stressed that it was “clean, tidy and perfectly adequate” for his needs and that he “regularly stays in similarly modest rooms”).

Lunt also stated that the Nobu Hotel was “the place where Wayne/Coleen, along with their agent and certain witnesses, stayed and that it therefore had obvious practical advantages.” He added that he had “never been there before or since stayed overnight” and clarified that the food, coffee, breakfast pastries and drinks in the lobby bar that were on his room bill were “not consumed by me, but by several others”. (Translation: Wayne.)

Senior costs judge Andrew Gordon-Saker then ruled that while Rooney's team had “failed to be transparent”, this was not “sufficiently unreasonable or unreasonable” to constitute misconduct.

The exact amount Vardy will have to pay has not yet been determined. A line-by-line assessment of the costs will be carried out at a later date.

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