THE phone at the centre of the Wagatha Christie trial is caught on camera just minutes before it dropped from the hands of Rebekah Vardy’s PR manager into the North Sea.
The husband of Caroline Watt today reveals for the first time how her iPhone 12 Pro mobile ended up in “Davy Jones’s locker”.
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It allegedly contained vital WhatsApp messages between Becky and Caroline.
The phone became an object of ridicule in the High Court libel case as Becky sued Coleen Rooney and featured in Coleen’s new £1million Wagatha TV series.
Football manager Steve Watt said: “As far as I was concerned, the court case was the end of it but it’s being brought up again by people in the public eye.
“I’m sick of reading and hearing inaccurate things about it.
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“I want to set the record straight. The dropping of the phone was a simple accident.”
Steve put out a never-before-seen picture of the day the phone went missing on Tuesday, August 10, 2021.
It shows him sitting beside Caroline, who is holding the mobile, on a Scottish sightseeing boat trip in choppy seas moments before it went overboard.
After Coleen accused Becky of leaking stories from her private Instagram account in 2019, the country was gripped by their High Court libel trial last summer.
Becky was ordered to pay the defendant £1.5million in costs after the judge ruled Coleen’s Wagatha Christie accusations were “substantially true”.
Caroline’s phone took centre stage in the proceedings when it was said that WhatsApp messages sent by her were not part of the libel claim as it was at the bottom of the North Sea.
Coleen’s barrister said the disappearance was “fishy” and commented that it appeared it was “far from an accident”.
Judge Mrs Justice Steyn said that on the evidence before her, it was “likely” Caroline had “deliberately” dropped it in the sea.
Ex-Chelsea footballer Steve said: “It might be convenient for wealthy people to lose £1,000 phones but it certainly wasn’t for us.
“And it made Caroline even more stressed.
“Caroline and I wish we’d never, ever set foot on that boat.
“This wasn’t a luxury yacht in Dubai, this was a drizzly day in Aberdeenshire.
“The sea was choppy and Caroline dropped the phone purely by accident.”
Steve, 38, grew up near Macduff in the county and it was from there that he and Caroline took the trip with their son, who is now 14, and daughter, now eight.
He said: “The kids have always wanted to go on the sea up there to try to see dolphins and seals.
“I’d never agreed because my daughter was too young but anyone with kids knows what it is like to be nagged and nagged.
“If there’s anybody to blame for this it is me, because I decided to arrange the trip for them.”
The jaunt was due to last for two hours but was cut short.
Steve explained: “There was our family, another family, a skipper and a woman from the boat company on board.
“To begin with, me and Caroline were sitting down on a bench at the back next to the main standing passenger area.
“When we were there, her phone fell out of her coat pocket and the woman from the boat company told her, ‘Be careful, we don’t have insurance for lost property’.
“Caroline then held it in her hand.
“It was a bit choppy. A little girl from the other family and her mum started being seasick.
“Because of it all, our daughter and Caroline started to feel unwell.
“Caroline was standing, leaning on the railings overlooking the water and concentrating on the horizon to try to stop herself from being ill. I was cuddling our daughter behind her.
“In hindsight, if all the sickness hadn’t started, we would still be sitting down and it would never have all happened.”
The children were thrilled when the skipper spotted a seal.
Steve said: “He cut the engine so as not to scare it.
“The boat was rocking from side to side when we stopped. Caroline took a video of the seal on her phone.
“When the engine started again, it jerked into action just as another boat passed us on the other side.
“Our boat went through the wake and there was a judder, a jolt.
Caroline did a little stumble forward on to the railings. I saw the phone drop towards the water.
“She just turned round and said, ‘F***, I’ve dropped my phone’. That was the first thing that came out of her mouth, ‘F***’.”
Straight-talking Steve says that his wife is “clumsy” and has osteoarthritis.
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He added: “It is very painful in her right thumb, not so bad in the left.
“She takes medication for it. She gets a lot of pain, especially in cold conditions when it seizes up.
“The phone just fell out of her hand as the boat moved.”
During the court case there were several references to the phone.
Caroline had been expected to figure in the proceedings but did not attend following psychiatric reports.
Coleen’s barrister said it was like performing: “Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.”
As the court discussed the missing phone, the legal expert said it was a “shame” potentially crucial messages were “lying at the bottom of the sea in Davy Jones’ locker”.
Rebekah replied: “Who is Davy Jones?”
As sniggers 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 like Pirates of the Caribbean and I grew up next to the sea so it is a phrase you are quite 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 tells how she played detective, talks about the famous libel case and discusses Caroline.
Steve added: “When anything comes up like this, I can see Caroline going into herself.
“I love Caroline and I am tired of her being quizzed constantly.
“I am sick of people talking nonsense — using stories that are simply not true for their own benefit to justify things.
“You would imagine people would have moved on with their lives. I thought it would go away but that clearly isn’t happening.”
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The lost phone has now featured in theatre production Vardy V Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial, Channel 4 show Vardy v Rooney: A Courtroom Drama and now Coleen’s Disney+ programme.
But to the Watts, the cost of the phone was no laughing matter.
Self-employed Caroline was signed off work due to the stress of the legal proceedings. Steve — boss at Kent side Hythe Town — took time off to support her.
He said: “It wasn’t insured. We couldn’t just afford to buy a new one without thinking about it.
“I had to buy her the version down from the one she’d had when I got the replacement.
“And the stress of losing the phone made things worse for her.
“Why would anybody intentionally chuck away a perfectly good phone? What people say doesn’t make sense.
“Caroline had been aware for a year that her phone would be checked.
“She uses iCloud like everyone else, hence why we have videos that she took from the boat like the one of the seal.
“That iCloud was checked twice by experts.
“Of course everyone can think what they think and are entitled to their opinions.
“But those who said she lost the phone for convenience are wrong.
“Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Further claims were made about his 43-year-old wife when she did not appear in court and her witness statement was withdrawn.
Steve said: “That was my decision. It got to the point where she wasn’t well enough.
“One evening I emailed the solicitors and removed everything relating to her that I could from the case.
“I didn’t tell Caroline until afterwards.
“She cried because she thought she was letting people down. But I had to do it. Everyone in the case knew she was too unwell.
“Her psychiatric report showed that. Caroline hates talking about any of this, but it is a relief for me to finally speak out.”
Steve admits there have been some lessons learned from what has happened.
Laughing, he said: “We all have insurance on our phones now which came in useful as I lost mine a year later!
“And I keep saying to Caroline I’m going to set up a tour boat firm and show people where the phone went missing.
“Maybe we could make some real money out of it and get Disney+ to sign me up for a series!”
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