A judge described Katie Price as a “dangerous witness” after her former husband was cleared of raping a 13-year-old girl.
Kieran Hayler, 39, had been accused of sexually assaulting and raping the child in West Sussex in 2016.
After nearly 15 hours of deliberation, the 10 jurors returned majority verdicts on Thursday morning.
Judge Mark van der Zwart said former glamour model Price’s personal agenda against her ex-husband had almost caused the trial to collapse.
He said her time in the witness box should have been restricted to stop her from making further allegations.
The judge said Ms Price had created an “overwhelming tsunami of prejudice”, prompting Mr Hayler’s defence team to apply for the jury to be discharged after just one day of evidence.
Hayler, from Northchapel in West Sussex, wept as he was released from the dock at Lewes Crown Court.
Speaking on the court steps, he vowed to “rebuild his life” after enduring years of what he described as “absolute hell”.
His mother, Wendy Hayler, and former partner Michelle Pentecost cried as the verdicts were delivered.
Hayler was cleared of three counts involving rape and sexual assault, along with four alternative charges of sexual activity with a child.
The former couple at the UK premiere of Fifty Shades Darker in London in 2017
Kieran Hayler with his mother Wendy outside Lewes Crown Court after the verdict
Katie Price pictured during a nail pampering session in Sussex
Kieran Hayler with his former partner Michelle Pentecost, who gave evidence for the defence
The former stripper met Ms Price in 2012 and proposed to her on Christmas Day.
They married at a luxury Caribbean resort in January 2013, but separated in 2018 before divorcing three years later.
The turbulent relationship between Hayler and the media personality was examined during the proceedings. He accused his former wife of setting him up with “fabricated” allegations and described the case as a “smear campaign against me”.
However, the celebrity witness denied being “angry and vengeful” towards her former husband.
Standing beside his mother outside the court, Mr Hayler said: “I’d like to thank my friends and family, who’ve stuck by me for five years of absolute hell.
“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.’
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’.
Ms Piercy said her evidence was’like lobbing hand grenades into the court’.
Of Ms Price’s evidence, 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 Ryan Richter disputed the argument and instead suggested it was from the celebrity witness ‘having lost control’.
His Honour Judge Van der Zwart was forced to warn the jury that what she said was ‘not correct and you must disregard it’.
‘It was submitted that so much prejudice was caused that no judicial direction to the jury could remedy it.
‘It was submitted a high degree of necessity had arisen to justify discharging the jury.
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.
Kieran Hayler outside Lewes Crown Court, East Sussex today
The judge said: ‘In emotive cases like these, my experience is that it is common for a witness to be supportive of one side of the other, to volunteer unprompted, their belief or opinion of where the truth lies and of whether the defendant is guilty or innocent.
‘That rarely results in a jury being discharged and a re-trial being ordered because members of the public serving on juries know perfectly well no one else’s opinion about a defendant’s guilt or innocence matters.’
The judge said it was not the first time Katie Price had failed to comply with court orders.
He said he felt Katie Price was likely to make further outbursts if she was called as a witness again which did not benefit either the Crown or defence.
He said it was likely the same situation would arise again.
When she returned to court, the judge told Ms Price: ‘It is important you listen to and answer the questions and do not provide any more information unless you’re asked to do so.’
Despite his warning, Katie Price went on to make a series of unprompted allegations of the defendant having behaved inappropriately with other women and girls.
‘It’s plain to me that every additional minute she remains in the witness box provides another opportunity for her to volunteer something irrelevant and prejudicial,’ the judge said.
Hayler was emotional and bent over as he was told by the judge he could leave the dock and was discharged.
Katie Price is pictured arriving at Lewes Crown Court, East Sussex, on October 14
During the trial, Price was accused by her ex-husband of ‘coaching’ the alleged victim after discovering messages in which his then-wife suggested he fancied the girl and promised to make her ‘a little star’.
Hayler told the court: ‘I am attracted to older women,’ adding that all his significant relationships had been with older women.
He admitted having affairs with three other women during his marriage to Price but claimed she had also been unfaithful.
The court heard that the couple’s relationship had broken down by mid-2013, with Hayler telling jurors that ‘trust had gone on both sides’.
Hayler said he discovered messages between his wife and the alleged victim in 2017 while searching Price’s phone for evidence that she was having an affair.
The court heard that Price had messaged the teenager, claiming she had heard Hayler and the girl had kissed and that he had ‘tried it on’ with her.
In another message, the former glamour model told the girl: ‘I will make you a little star.’
Hayler said he found the exchange suspicious and took photographs of the messages on his own phone.
Asked by his defence barrister Ms Piercy why he had photographed them, he replied: ‘Because she made out that I fancied (the complainant).
‘I thought, “This is a bit weird”.’
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.’
Judge Van der Zwart sent the jury, made up of six women and five men, to begin their deliberations on Tuesday afternoon.
In closing speeches on Monday, prosecutor Ryan Richter said: ‘You’ve seen the big personalities, the big egos in this case and you’ll judge it, you’ll cut through it.
‘You’ll decide whether those big voices drown out the voice of (the complainant) or whether that voice has made you sure on the counts of this indictment.’
Defence barrister Arlette Piercy said in her closing speech that Hayler has been consistent and clear throughout his defence, in what has been a ‘roller coaster ride for everybody in this court’.
Hayler and Katie Price are pictured together at a London film premiere in November 2015
Hayler said the allegations started after he split from his ex-wife and after she checked out of a The Priory rehab clinic following her conviction for rolling her car while under the influence of drink and drugs.
He said: ‘The timing is almost identical. Every time something was going bad for her, a bad news story or something to do with me, there would be a threat to do with me and this.’
He said despite being checked into the Priory after her conviction, Katie Price was ‘out and about’, adding: ‘This was three years after our relationship ended.
‘She had her phone in the Priory. She was out and about for hairdresser, shopping.
‘Then all of a sudden this allegation is made. Miss Price, I think, is behind the allegation.’
Hayler also described finding the aftermath of a drink and drugs binge at Price’s home dubbed ‘Mucky Mansion’ after they split.
The jury heard he found cocaine and empty bottles around the house in Sussex before he moved out in 2018.
