Kieran Hayler has been acquitted of raping and sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in 2016, after a trial at Lewes Crown Court. The 39-year-old was found not guilty of three counts of rape and one count of sexual assault of the teenager in West Sussex, and was also cleared of four alternative counts of sexual activity with a child.
Speaking to reporters outside court while supported by his mother, Mr Hayler thanked his friends and family who stuck by him “for five years of absolute hell”. He said: “I’m grateful to the jury for their careful consideration of this difficult case. I’d like to be left in peace now to rebuild my life and spend time with my family.” He also thanked his legal team for their “unwavering assistance throughout this extremely difficult time”.
Trial details and allegations
During the proceedings, Mr Hayler accused his ex-wife, media personality Katie Price, of setting him up with “fabricated” allegations, describing the charges as part of a “smear campaign” against him. Ms Price, who gave evidence against Mr Hayler, denied being “angry and vengeful” towards her ex-husband.
The jury, made up of four men and six women, returned the verdicts after 14 hours and 55 minutes of deliberation. Mr Hayler cried in court and was doubled over as he was told by the judge he could leave the dock and was discharged.
Relationship history and evidence
Mr Hayler and Ms Price were together for five weeks before they got engaged and subsequently married in the Bahamas in January 2013. Mr Hayler told jurors “trust had gone on both sides” in the marriage by midway through that year, but the couple did not split up until 2018 when he moved out and they later divorced in 2021. He stressed during the trial that he was “attracted to older women” and accepted having affairs with three older women during his marriage with Ms Price.
During the trial, prosecutor Ryan Richter had put to Mr Hayler: “Your feud with Katie Price is not what this case is about, is it?” He replied: “It is.” Mr Richter went on: “This case is about you having raped a girl, isn’t it?” Mr Hayler said: “I have not.”
Defence team's application and judge's ruling
During his evidence, the personal trainer told jurors he thought Ms Price was “coaching” the teenage girl after discovering messages she sent to her. He took pictures of messages on Ms Price’s phone when they were together in which she talks to the girl about Hayler fancying her, adding: “I will make you a little star.” Ms Price had told the trial the phrase was a “figure of speech” but Mr Hayler said it was a “very strange comment to make”. He said: “Everyone can interpret it how they want, it’s very pushy. I thought she was coaching her into (saying) something she shouldn’t.”
It can now be reported that Ms Price’s first day of evidence during the trial led to Mr Hayler’s defence team calling for the jury to be discharged, accusing her of a “premeditated attempt to bring down this trial”. In a legal application to the judge, barrister Arlette Piercy argued that evidence given by Ms Price resulted in an “overwhelming tsunami of prejudice to us which we are simply unable to deal with”. Of Ms Price’s evidence, some of which cannot be reported for legal reasons, the lawyer said: “She then went on a deliberate, malicious and in my submission, premeditated attempt to bring down this trial.” She added that “the significance of it was written all over the jury’s faces”.
Prosecutor Mr Richter disputed the argument and instead suggested it was from the celebrity witness “having lost control”. Judge Mark van der Zwart dismissed the legal bid and instead later gave the jury a warning that what she said was “not correct and you must disregard it”. In his ruling, the judge described Ms Price as “what barristers of a previous generation would have called a dangerous witness” with a personal agenda in proceedings and who was “liable to say something prejudicial given half a chance.” “Discharging this jury was unlikely to prevent the same situation arising again at a re-trial,” he said.
