SMIRKING Katie Price dodged jail again yesterday — and was so cocky she’d booked a holiday in Thailand starting today.
Katie, already on a suspended sentence, got community work for breaching a restraining order with an obscene text rant.
Campaigners said: “She should be behind bars.”
Instead of being in a grim prison cell, Katie Price will tonight sleep in a plush Thai holiday hotel.
The foul-mouthed OnlyFans model admitted breaching a court order by harassing her ex-husband’s fiancée.
But despite six driving bans and a drink and drug-fuelled crash, she yesterday dodged a jail sentence yet again.
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Last night campaigners blasted the latest let-off for the 44-year-old.
David Spencer, Director of the Centre for Crime Prevention, said: “It’s absolutely ludicrous that she has got off the hook again and begs the question how many times a celebrity has to break the law before the courts will have the courage to jail them.
“She is a serious and repeat offender and should be behind bars. The fact that she isn’t sends a message to other offenders that such crimes are not that serious — and to victims that their experiences count for nothing.
“She has been told by a judge before that she thinks she is ‘above the law’
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“It’s not hard to imagine why she might think that when she gets away with it time and time again.”
Retired Sussex Police detective chief superintendent Kevin Moore agreed: “Sentencing such as this sends out completely the wrong message.
“I am sure there are many members of the general public asking themselves why she has received anything other than a custodial sentence.”
Yet Price was so cocky of escaping a prison term that she had already booked the sunshine break.
She will jet off today on the two-week getaway with fiancée Carl Woods, 33.
A pal said: “Katie was super-confident this whole time. She booked this holiday weeks ago.
“It’s disgraceful, to be honest. She’s shown time and again she has no respect for the courts and this is just the latest example. She’s laughing at our justice system.”
Price had been banned in 2019 from contacting ex Kieran Hayler’s fiancée Michelle Penticost after ranting at her at school gates.
But she still sent him the vile message after being shown a message on Michelle’s private Instagram page which she took to be a dig at her.
It read: “Tell your c*****g whore piece of s*** girlfriend not to start on me.
“She has a restraining order, so shouldn’t try antagonise me as she is in breach, and I’m sure she doesn’t want people knowing that she was having an affair with you behind my back, the gutter s**g’.”
Kieran and Michelle reported it to the police.
Price was nicked in the early hours the next day and spent 12 hours in a cell.
It came only a month after she was given a 16-week suspended sentence for flipping over her BMW X5 in Partridge Green, West Sussex, while banned and after a drink and drug session.
'ABOVE THE LAW'
A judge slammed her for thinking she is “above the law” and told her she deserved to be spending Christmas behind bars.
But the sentence was suspended because she had gone to The Priory for rehab.
Price turned up with Carl at Lewes crown court, East Sussex, wearing shades and a green tracksuit
Asked by The Sun if she thought she was going down, Price growled: “You can suck my d***.”
The court heard an impact statement from former air hostess Michelle, 38, saying the angry text had a “devastating effect on my mental wellbeing”.
She went on: “I feel threatened and intimidated. I feel anxious a lot of the time, demoralised and scared to go out.
“The consequences are I feel she will attack me.
“I felt by having a restraining order it would make me feel safe but, by someone breaching it, it has made me feel very vulnerable.”
But Judge Stephen Mooney said he was showing mercy to mum-of-five Price as she texted Kieran rather than contacting Michelle and so did not constitute a direct breach of her five-year restraining order.
And he said the offence did not trigger the suspended sentence because it was not of a similar nature.
He accepted the abuse was not in the top category reserved for “very serious or persistent” breaches and had not caused mum-of-two Michelle “very serious harm or distress”.
Instead the judge ruled that, while deliberate, the “vile and nasty” message did not cross the threshold for a jail term
The court heard it would be “unjust” to send Price to prison having heard she is receiving treatment for “depressive disorder and anxiety issues” and had “misunderstood” the restraining order.
Judge Mooney added: “Immediate custody would have a strong impact on Harvey and the other four children.”
He gave her an 18-month community order with a total of 170 hours of unpaid work, and told her to pay £1,500 in costs.
A spokeswoman for 35-year-old Kieran told The Sun: “We are incredibly disappointed with the result of today’s court hearing.
“We feel a custodial sentence would have sent the right message to the public given the seriousness of Miss Price’s offending.
“This decision flies in the face of true justice and will worry other victims of crime.
“Why should they report anything if the offender won’t be properly taken to task?”
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Price’s first driving ban came in 2010.
In 2019 she was convicted of being drunk in charge of a motor vehicle after cops found her slumped in the back of her garish pink Range Rover in Bexley, South East London.
Model’s long list of shame
2003: Escapes a speeding charge after police fail to arrest her within 12 weeks.
2008: Three penalty points for talking on phone while driving.
2009: Fails to name driver after her car was allegedly caught speeding, then gets four more points for doing 99mph.
2010: Three points for failing to control horsebox. Later banned for six months for speeding.
2012: Year’s ban for failing to respond to two speeding tickets.
2018: Six-month totting-up ban after speeding then pictured still at the wheel. Later arrested after a 2am crash.
2019: Three-month ban for driving while disqualified. Five-year restraining order from contacting Michelle Penticost directly or indirectly. Then banned for failing to name driver after another crash.
2021: Flips BMW, admits drink driving, driving while disqualified and driving without insurance. Gets 16-week suspended jail sentence.
2022: Admits breaching the restraining order over Michelle.