After claiming today that she’misunderstood’ the terms of a restraining order when she wrote a ‘vile and nasty’ message about her ex-fiancée, husband’s Katie Price will be back in court in only two weeks.
After admitting the violation, when she texted Kieran Hayler calling Michelle Penticost a “gutter s**g” and already having nine driving convictions, the former beauty model, who also had to appear in court over her bankruptcy, faced the possibility of spending time in jail.
This morning, the 44-year-old was informed that she would not go to jail for the offense but would instead need to complete 170 hours of unpaid work.
However, Price will have to appear again at Crawley Magistrates’ Court on July 5 on charges of speeding and failing to give the police information.
Just 11 days before she crashed her car in September of last year, the troubled actress was allegedly caught speeding over the 60 mph speed limit in a BMW near her filthy property in Horsham, West Sussex.
The case will now be handled in accordance with the “single justice procedure,” which enables adults accused with summary-only offenses that don’t carry a jail sentence to have their cases handled remotely by a magistrate.
It indicates that the case could result in a fine, points on Price’s license, and/or a driving ban. The technique prevents jailing her.
Price checked herself into the Priory for recovery, which costs up to £7,000 a week, to escape going to jail for the drug- and alcohol-fueled accident in September. She has received a total of six driving bans.
a single magistrate who can handle a case without having to be present in the courtroom where it is listed.
Price, who admitted violating a restraining order when she sent the text, appeared in court today to find out her fate.
The model, who attended in all-green, was barred from speaking with Miss Penticost directly or indirectly for five years in June 2019. When challenged about the possibility of a prison sentence, the model was overheard telling a reporter to “suck my d**k.”
This happened when she yelled a derogatory “tirade of abuse” at her during a fight on the schoolyard.
The message read: ‘Tell your c***ing w***e piece of s**t girlfriend not to start on me.
‘She has a restraining order so shouldn’t try antagonise me as she is in breach and I’m sure she doesn’t want people knowing that she was having an affair with you behind my back. That gutter s**g.’
The court heard the offence was committed due to Price’s use of the words ‘tell your’, which was an indirect attempt to communicate with Penticost.
It was also said that her message to Mr Hayler may have been triggered by an Instagram post by Miss Penticost, which she denies was aimed at Price.
But at Lewes Crown Court today, Price was told she would not be going to prison, and would have to do 170 hours of community service and pay £1,500 costs.
Judge Stephen Mooney told Price: ‘In my judgement, this offence was committed out of anger.
‘The words you used were highly offensive and inflammatory so the breach cannot be considered minor.
‘In my judgement, balancing the aggravating and mitigating factors, the appropriate sentence is a medium-level community order.’
Price showed no emotion as the verdict was announced but gave a brief smile as she left the dock.
Her fiancee Carl Woods, 34, who was in the court public gallery, let out a sigh of relief and held his head in his hands.
Speaking after the verdict, Mr Hayler and Miss Penticost said this morning: ‘We are incredibly disappointed with the result of today’s court hearing.
‘We feel a custodial sentence would have sent the right message to the public given the seriousness of Miss Price’s offending.’
Earlier in a hearing, Miss Penticost said in a victim impact statement how the impact of the restraining order breach by Price had a ‘devastating effect’ on her mental wellbeing.
She said: ‘The impact of what Katie has done is very upsetting, I feel threatened and intimidated.
‘I feel demoralised and not wanting to go out. The language used made me feel scared. I felt it was an attack on me.
‘The consequences are I feel she will attack me. I felt by having a restraining order it would make me feel safe but by someone breaching it it has made me feel very vulnerable.’
Nicholas Hamblin, representing Price, said his client had pleaded guilty to the breach but she had been under a ‘misunderstanding’ that the restraining order ‘worked both ways’.
He added: ‘She has shown signs of remorse, she accepts an indirect breach.’
Mr Hamblin said that Price had sought help for her emotional problems at the Priory Clinic.
He said she suffered from a ‘depressive disorder and anxiety’, and added: ‘Miss Price is learning to cope with her emotional problems and to not react in the way she has in this case.’
He continued: ‘She has two different personalities, the public one and the vulnerable one of being in the public eye and every day in the public eye no matter what she does.
‘It’s perhaps a case of building someone up only to knock them down.’
He added that ‘there was a lot of good to be said’ for Price and she was considered in a probation report to be at ‘low risk of reoffending’.
Mr Hamblin said the offence was a ‘minor breach’ of the restraining order because it was an ‘indirect’ message and would have been ‘much more serious’ if sent directly to the complainant’s phone.
Price was arrested at her home by officers at around 5.45pm on January 21 and taken to Worthing police station.
After a 12-hour round of questioning, she was released, though not before officers confiscated her phone, which they examined for evidence.
At an earlier hearing Crawley Magistrates Court was told Price sent the ‘vile and nasty’ message after Michelle Penticost uploaded an Instagram post about how to deal with people who were treating you badly.
The court heard there was a history of ‘clear antagonism’ between Miss Price and Miss Penticost.
Last year Price was handed a 16 week suspended sentence after crashing her BMW X5 while drunk last September.
Price then dodged a potential jail term in January after £7,358 fines she owed for driving offences were paid at the last minute.
She now faces a fresh allegation of speeding which is due to be heard before magistrates in July.
Earlier this year Price again avoided jail after striking a last-minute deal to pay off her bankruptcy debts.
The 44-year-old was scheduled to appear before the High Court to explain why she hadn’t paid back £2.3m she owed after being declared bankrupt in 2019.
However, the former model reached a last-minute agreement to repay the money, which resulted in a second postponement of her bankruptcy court.
Price was previously seen cutting a somber figure as she departed her makeup lesson in London last night due to a low turnout.
In recent months, the former beauty model has been giving masterclasses for admirers across the nation. On Wednesday afternoon, she also participated in a class in Leicester.
After the class, she was picked up by her fiancé, 33-year-old Carl Woods, from former Big Brother contestant Aisleyne Horgan-Fakin’ Wallace’s It salon.
As she exited the store, Price was spotted carrying a handbag with beige accents, pink and red gift bags, and other items.
She was dressed in pink sneakers with white soles and a brown tracksuit with a short-sleeved blouse.
As she walked to Woods’ car, the former Celebrity Big Brother winner hid her eyes behind a pair of sunglasses.
the first Get me out of here, I’m a celebrity! Some fans posed for photos outside the salon prior to the event, suggesting that campmate’s London outing only attracted a small number of people.
After hosting the workshop, she was seen gathering her luggage inside the salon.
After her tragic drink- and drug-fueled breakdown, Price said earlier this year that she had “hit rock bottom.”
The star discusses the collision, for which she received a 16-week suspended sentence and a two-year driving ban, in scenes from her Channel 4 series Katie Price’s Mucky Mansion.
When Katie flipped her uninsured BMW X5 into a hedge while driving while inebriated and disqualified on a country road close to the Sussex property that is featured in her new series, she informs the camera that she “could have killed someone or myself.”
After the September crash, Katie is seen in the next scenes going back to her house to resume the makeover while the voiceover informs us that she has spent a total of 30 days in a mental health facility.
She tells the camera: ‘I mean I can deal with a lot of things, stress, pressure, I breathe that. Behind closed doors there’s drama, no ones life is perfect.
‘When it hits me personally, that’s what I can’t deal with. I regret getting in the car, I could have killed someone. I could have killed myself. My kids might not have had a mum. It’s awful.
‘I was rock bottom at that point. It was a wake up call. I don’t want to be in that situation again. In fact I don’t want to be in a situation where I feel that sad inside that I need to just go and do something, be destructive and hurt people around me because I don’t know how to cope with it.
‘I have now decided to see a therapist every week for the rest of my life and put my hand up and say yeah I need help, help me.’