The phone at the center of the Wagatha Christie trial was caught on camera just minutes before it fell out of PR manager Rebecca Vardy’s hands and into the North Sea.
Today, Caroline Watt’s husband revealed for the first time how her iPhone 12 Pro cell phone ended up in “Davy Jones’ locker”.
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Caroline Watt’s husband shared a never-before-seen picture of the day her phone went missing on Tuesday, August 10, 2021.
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The phone is said to contain WhatsApp messages between Becky Vardy and CarolineCredit: Rex
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Telephone drama featured in Coleen Rooney’s new £1m TV series Wagatha Credit: 2023 Dave Bennett
It allegedly contained vital WhatsApp messages between Becky and Caroline.
The phone became the subject of ridicule in a High Court defamation case when Becky sued Coleen Rooney and appeared in Coleen’s new £1m TV series Wagatha.
Football manager Steve Watt said: “As far as I’m concerned the court case is over but people are bringing it up again in public.
“I’m sick of reading and hearing inaccurate things about it.
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“I want to set the record straight. Dropping the phone was just an accident.”
Steve posted a never-before-seen picture of the day the phone went missing on Tuesday, August 10, 2021.
It shows him sitting next to Caroline, who is holding a mobile phone, on a Scottish sightseeing boat trip on rough seas moments before he flew over.
After Coleen accused Becky of leaking stories from her private Instagram account in 2019, the country was gripped by their High Court defamation trial last summer.
Becky was ordered to pay £1.5 million in costs to the defendant after a judge ruled Coleen’s Wagath Christie’s allegations were “substantially true”.
Caroline’s phone took center stage in the proceedings when it was said that the WhatsApp messages she sent were not part of the defamation claim because they were about the bottom of the North Sea.
Coleen’s lawyer said the disappearance was “suspicious” and commented that it appeared “far from an accident”.
Judge Mrs Justice Steyn said the evidence before her made it “likely” Caroline had “deliberately” dropped it into the sea.
Former Chelsea footballer Steve said: “It might be convenient for rich people to lose £1,000 phones, but it certainly wasn’t for us.
“And that made Caroline even more stressed.
“Caroline and I wish we had never, ever set foot on that ship.
“This wasn’t a luxury yacht in Dubai, this was a rainy day in Aberdeenshire.
“The sea was rough and Caroline dropped her phone quite by accident.”
Steve, 38, grew up near Macduff in the county and it’s from there that he and Caroline hit the road with their son, now 14, and daughter, now eight.
He said: “The children have always wanted to go to the sea to try and see dolphins and seals.
“I never agreed because my daughter was too young, but anyone who has children knows what it’s like to be nagging and nagging.
“If anyone is to blame for this, it’s me, because I decided to organize the trip for them.”
The trip was supposed to last two hours, but it was interrupted.
Steve explained: “On board was our family, another family, the skipper and a woman from the shipping company.
“To begin with, me and Caroline sat on a bench in the back next to the main passenger standing area.
“When we were there, her phone fell out of her coat pocket and the woman from the shipping company said to her, ‘Be careful, we don’t have lost property insurance’.
“Caroline was holding it in her hand then.
“It was a bit restless. A girl from another family and her mother started getting seasick.
“Because of everything, our daughter and Caroline started to feel bad.
“Caroline stood, leaning against the railing overlooking the water and focused on the horizon to keep herself from being sick. I was petting our daughter behind her.
“Looking back, if all the diseases hadn’t started, we’d still be sitting here and none of this would have happened.”
The children were delighted when the captain saw the seal.
Steve said: “He turned the engine off so he wouldn’t spook him.
“The boat was rocking from side to side when we stopped. Caroline took a picture of the seal on her phone.
“When the engine restarted, it started just as the other boat passed us on the other side.
“Our ship passed through the furrow and there was a tremor, a jolt.
Caroline stumbled forward a little on the fence. I saw the phone fall towards the water.
“She just turned around and said, ‘Damn, I dropped my phone.’ That was the first thing out of her mouth, ‘F***’.”
Honest Steve says his wife is “clumsy” and has osteoarthritis.
He added: “It’s very painful in the right thumb, not so bad in the left.
“She takes medication for it. It hurts a lot, especially in cold conditions when it gets clogged.
“The phone just fell out of her hand while the ship was moving.”
There were several references to the phone during the court proceedings.
Caroline was expected to attend the proceedings but was not present following the psychiatric reports.
Coleen’s lawyer said it was like performing: “Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.”
As the court heard the missing phone, a legal expert said it was a “shame” that potentially crucial messages were “lying at the bottom of the sea in Davy Jones’ locker”.
Rebekah replied, “Who is Davy Jones?”
As laughter could be heard in the courtroom, Mrs Justice Steyn explained that it meant “the bottom of the sea”.
Last night Steve said: “I knew what Davy Jones’ locker meant.
“My son and I love Pirates of the Caribbean and I grew up by the sea so it’s a term you’re pretty familiar with.”
In her new series Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story, the wife of England legend and new Birmingham City manager Wayne details her private life.
She talks about how she played a detective, talks about a famous defamation case and discusses Caroline.
Steve added: “When something like this comes up, I see Caroline go into herself.
“I love Caroline and I’m tired of the constant questioning.
“I’m sick of people talking nonsense – using stories that are simply not true for their own benefit to justify things.
“You would imagine that people would get on with their lives. I thought it would go away, but apparently it’s not happening.”
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Caroline pictured with Becky at the National Television Awards Credit: See caption
The Lost Phone has now featured in the theatrical production of Vardy v Rooney: The Wagath Christie Trial, the Channel 4 show Vardy v Rooney: Court Drama and now on Coleen’s Disney+ programme.
But the price of the phone was not ridiculous to Watts.
Self-employed Caroline was fired from her job due to the stress of the court case. Steve — the Hythe Town boss on the Kent side — took time off to support her.
He said: “It was not insured. We couldn’t just afford to buy a new one without thinking about it.
“I had to buy her a smaller version than the one she had when I got the replacement.
“And the stress of losing her phone made things worse for her.
“Why would anyone purposely throw away a perfectly good phone? What people are saying doesn’t make sense.
“Caroline knew for a year that her phone would be checked.
“She uses iCloud like everyone else, so we have videos she took from the boat like the seal one.
“That iCloud was checked twice by experts.
“Of course everyone can think what they think and have the right to their opinion.
“But those who said she lost her phone for convenience are wrong.
“Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Further allegations were made about his 43-year-old wife when she failed to appear in court and her witness statement was withdrawn.
Steve said: “It was my decision. It got to the point where she wasn’t good enough.
“I emailed the lawyers one evening and removed everything I could about her from the case.
―I told Caroline only after that.
“She was crying because she thought she was letting people down. But I had to do it. Everyone in the case knew she was in too much trouble.
“Her psychiatric report showed that. Caroline hates to talk about any of this, but it’s a relief for me to finally speak up.”
Steve admits that some lessons have been learned from what happened.
Laughing, he said: “Now we all have insurance on our phones which has come in handy as I lost mine a year later!
“And I keep telling Caroline that I’m going to start a cruise ship company and show people where the phone went.
“Maybe we could make some real money out of it and get Disney+ to sign me up for a series!”
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Steve said: ‘Caroline and I wish we had never, ever set foot on that boat.’
Categories: Optical Illusion
Source: HIS Education