Right-wing commentator Katie Hopkins has been granted an insolvency agreement to avoid bankruptcy, according to reports.
Since appeared as a contestant on The Apprentice in 2007, Hopkins has made a name for herself with her inflammatory opinions - including her view that poor people in debt have no one to blame but themselves, notes The Guardian.
The newspaper says that she applied for an individual voluntary arrangement (IVA) in May and that this has now been agreed.
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So what happened?
In 2017, Hopkins lost a libel case brought against her by Jack Monroe, a left-wing activist and food blogger.
Hopkins had implied in tweets that Monroe approved of the vandalism of a war memorial by protesters, after mistaking her for New Statesman writer Laurie Penny. Monroe initially asked for an apology and a £5,000 donation towards rescuing migrants, but Hopkins refused to back down, and was later ordered to pay out hundreds of thousands of pounds in damages and legal costs.
“Meanwhile, her mainstream media career collapsed,” says The Guardian. Hopkins no longer writes for the Daily Mail and left her LBC radio show after calling for a “final solution” in response to the Manchester Arena terrorist attack.
She put her luxury Exeter mansion on the market in February this year, “selling it for £950,000 within three weeks”, reports the Daily Mirror, which describes her as “teetering on the verge of bankruptcy” with “crippling debts”.
An IVA is a legal contract, agreed in court, through which an applicant usually pledges to repay a certain amount of money each month to their creditors over a set period.
Monroe told The Guardian: “It’s really quite sad – two tweets cost her her house, job, and now her credit rating. I’m supposed to be jubilant and celebratory but I feel quite mixed up. Having been close to the edge of bankruptcy myself, it’s a hideous situation to be in, but it was completely avoidable… I thought she’d just say sorry.”
Hopkins has yet to comment.
