Katie Price has left the UK as arrest warrant issued

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".

Price has said she missed the previous court hearing in March because she was "dealing with serious stuff". She failed to attend another hearing in May, but claimed on her "The Katie Price Show" podcast that she had been "signed off for any kind of activity for court" due to her mental health, the Daily Mail reported.

The active arrest warrant means that Price can be taken into custody on her return to the UK and detained to make sure she attends a future hearing.