Katie Price has left the UK as arrest warrant issued

Model says she is away 'working' after missing insolvency court hearing into her bankruptcy and £750,000 unpaid tax

Price at a film premiere at The Curzon Mayfair in November last year
Price at a film premiere at The Curzon Mayfair in November last year
(Image credit: Joe Maher / Getty Images)

Katie Price has denied reports she left the UK to avoid a court hearing over £750,000 in unpaid tax, saying she is "away working for a documentary on corrective surgeries".

An arrest warrant was issued for the former glamour model after she failed to attend a court hearing regarding her bankruptcies yesterday. Price, 46, was due to appear at the Insolvency and Companies Court in London after being declared bankrupt in November 2019 and again in March this year over an unpaid tax bill totalling more than £750,000.

Judge Catherine Burton told the court Price "has no real excuse in failing to attend today's hearing", adding: "The reason for her absence today is irrelevant".

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"Her liberty is on the line, but unfortunately we are at the end of the road," said barrister Darragh Connell, representing the trustee for the bankruptcies. 

The court was shown evidence suggesting Price had left the UK, including "a now-deleted Instagram story showing what appeared to be her eating a crisp sandwich on a flight", said the BBC.

She is thought to have travelled with boyfriend JJ Slater, who "shared a snap of inside the Sheraton Istanbul Atakoy Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, on his Instagram story", said the Mirror.

In a message shared to her Instagram account, Price confirmed she was "away" working and said she was trying her best to "rectify things during extremely challenging times".

"I have to continue in my work in order to satisfy these bankruptcy orders, which is all I am trying to do right now", she said, adding that her legal troubles "will be addressed after my return from work".

Harriet Marsden is a writer for The Week, mostly covering UK and global news and politics. Before joining the site, she was a freelance journalist for seven years, specialising in social affairs, gender equality and culture. She worked for The Guardian, The Times and The Independent, and regularly contributed articles to The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The New Statesman, Tortoise Media and Metro, as well as appearing on BBC Radio London, Times Radio and “Woman’s Hour”. She has a master’s in international journalism from City University, London, and was awarded the "journalist-at-large" fellowship by the Local Trust charity in 2021. 

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