Reality TV star Katie Price found guilty of driving offences after court no-show

Reality TV star Katie Price has been fined £880 for driving without a licence or insurance after a court heard she was recognised by a police officer at a petrol station.

Magistrates sitting in Northampton found Price guilty of the offences after being shown CCTV footage of the model, wearing black slippers, stepping out of the driver’s side of her bronze-coloured Range Rover.

Price, who found fame on ITV reality show I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!, had previously denied both motoring charges.

But three magistrates found Price guilty in her absence after a brief trial on Tuesday, imposing an £880 fine and ordering her to pay £620 in costs and a £352 victim surcharge,

The 45-year-old model, of Dial Post, near Horsham, West Sussex, was given 28 days to pay the total amount of £1,852, imposed in relation to the offences committed on the A14 at Kettering on August 2 last year.

Finding Price guilty and imposing the fine, chair of the bench Neil Sheppard said: “From the evidence we have been shown, the case is proven against Miss Price.”

Magistrates were told Price has numerous previous convictions for motoring offences, including driving while disqualified in 2019 and 2021.

Price was banned from driving for two years after she crashed her BMW in September 28 2021, and was also handed a 16-week suspended jail sentence for drink-driving.

During that court appearance, the prosecutor said Price had five previous driving bans.

The latest court hearing took place weeks after a High Court judge ruled that Price will lose nearly half of her monthly income from adult entertainment website OnlyFans for the next three years – after she was declared bankrupt in November 2019.

Following the latest offence, Price was handed eight penalty points on her licence, which was said in court to be “expired” after a “medical stop” was placed on it in April last year.

The court was told Price was caught on CCTV at an M&S petrol station forecourt on the morning of August 2, where police officers standing near the entrance saw her vehicle pull up at one of the pumps.

Opening the facts of the case against Price, prosecutor Cheryl Burridge said: “Officers were on a mobile patrol and they stopped at the service station.

“They saw a vehicle pulling into the service station by the fuel pump. She (Price) has exited the vehicle with an unknown male and a child.”

As Price and the male walked from the vehicle into the services past the officers, the court heard, she was recognised and they “believed her to be disqualified from driving”.

Although Price was not subject to a driving ban, the court heard she did not have a valid licence due to the “stop” put on it, after an application for renewal was withdrawn.

It also emerged that Price left the services in the Range Rover, with the unknown male at the wheel, and was not stopped because police had not witnessed her driving the vehicle.

After Price had left the services, the court heard, officers reviewed footage showing her getting out of the driver’s seat and instigated criminal proceedings.

In a statement read to the court by the prosecutor, Pc Harrison Beverley said: “During this statement I will refer to a female who is known as Katie Price.

“I was outside the front of the shops, speaking with response police. I did not see her (Price) driving.

“I recognised her as a media personality.”

The officer added that he had reviewed CCTV footage at the petrol station and had seen a female “believed to be Price” step out of the driver’s side of the Range Rover.

A marker was then placed on the vehicle after computer checks disclosed that Price had an expired licence and was not covered with valid insurance.

On the day of the offences, the court heard, Price was wearing a distinctive black and white top and black slippers.

Magistrates were told the previous suspended sentence imposed on Price had no effect in the current proceedings, and that she was given three penalty points in November last year for speeding.

Price’s licence is now endorsed with a total of 11 penalty points, the court heard, and is understood to be currently classed as having been revoked.