Kieran Hayler, the former husband of Katie Price, told jurors he is “attracted to older women” while denying allegations that he raped a 13-year-old girl.

Giving evidence at Lewes Crown Court on Thursday, the 39-year-old former stripper said every serious relationship he had been involved in was with a woman older than him.

Hayler was married to former glamour model Price when the alleged offences took place in West Sussex in 2016. He is accused of raping the teenager.

He denies three charges of rape and one of sexual assault, telling the jury that he believed the allegations had been “fabricated”.

Hayler also alleged that Price had “coached” the complainant after finding messages in which his then-wife suggested he was interested in the girl and said she would make her “a little star”.

When asked about his relationships, Hayler said: “I am attracted to older women.” He maintained that all of his significant partners had been older than him.

He acknowledged having affairs with three women during his marriage to Price, but told the court that she had also been unfaithful.

Hayler said the couple’s relationship had become strained by the middle of 2013, adding that “trust had gone on both sides”.

He claimed Price had accused him of being attracted to between 15 and 20 other people during their troubled marriage.

Hayler told jurors that he came across messages between Price and the alleged victim in 2017, when he was looking through his wife’s phone for evidence that she was having an affair.

“I thought she would be using she thought I fancied other people to warrant having this affair,” he said.

The court had previously heard that Price messaged the teenager saying she had been told Hayler and the girl had kissed and that he had “tried it on” with her.

In a separate message, the former glamour model allegedly told the girl: “I will make you a little star.”

Hayler said the conversation appeared suspicious to him, prompting him to photograph the messages using his own phone.

Defence barrister Arlette Piercy asked why he had taken the photographs. Hayler replied: “Because she made out that I fancied (the complainant).”

“I thought, ‘This is a bit weird’,” he added.

He said he had opened Price’s phone using his fingerprint, explaining that she had previously accessed his device in the same way.

Asked what the incident indicated about their marriage, Hayler told the court: “The relationship is breaking down.”

Hayler suggested his then-wife had been attempting to influence the teenager into making allegations against him.

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He told jurors: ‘Everyone can interpret it how they want, it’s very pushy. It’s a very strange comment to make.

‘I thought she was coaching her into (saying) something she shouldn’t. I didn’t send them anywhere, I took a picture on my phone.’

Price previously defended her use of the phrase ‘little star’ when she was questioned about the messages during cross-examination.

Asked by Ms Piercy what she had meant by the comment, she replied: ‘That’s a figure of speech.’

Hayler told the court he had only recently rediscovered the photographs after retrieving old phones from storage while moving house.

He subsequently passed the images to his solicitor.

The former stripper has suggested Price launched a ‘campaign’ against him following the breakdown of their marriage and that the allegations against him formed part of it.

The couple married in 2013, but their relationship collapsed in 2018 before they divorced in 2021.

Hayler was still married to Price when the alleged offences took place in West Sussex in 2016.

The alleged victim, who is not part of either Hayler or Price’s extended family, first contacted the NSPCC in 2021 about the allegations.

The charity subsequently referred the matter to police, prompting an investigation.

Meanwhile, Hayler pleaded not guilty on Thursday to four additional charges of sexual activity with a child after the prosecution concluded its case.

The lesser charges were added to the indictment as alternatives to the three rape counts and one count of sexual assault.

Judge Mark van der Zwart explained to jurors that the ‘really important difference’ between the original allegations and the alternative charges was that the latter did not refer to the ‘absence of consent’.

He told the jury: ‘It remains a matter entirely for you to decide if prosecution have made you sure any sexual activity took place between the complainant and the defendant Mr Hayler.

‘No suggestion whatsoever from myself you should find any particular verdict of the facts. The position of the parties remains unchanged.’

The judge stressed that the prosecution maintained the complainant had been raped, while Hayler’s defence remained that nothing sexual had happened between them.

If convicted, Hayler faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for rape, ten years for sexual assault and 14 years for sexual activity with a child.

He denies all eight charges.

The trial continues on Friday.

King Charles and Queen Camilla ignored a small but vocal group of protesters as they formally opened the Welsh Parliament in Cardiff.

The royal couple also set aside the attention surrounding Harry and Meghan’s visit to Nottingham as they held an emotional meeting with an Aberfan disaster survivor and the great-grandsons of the school caretaker who helped save his life.

Charles held the hand of Gareth Jones, 66, who became emotional while speaking to the King at the Senedd. Gareth showed him a photograph of himself as a child with Prince Philip, taken a day after Pantglas Junior School was engulfed by slurry 60 years ago.

Heavy rain triggered the collapse of a colliery spoil tip on the mountainside, sending debris onto the school and killing 144 people, including 116 children.

“How are you keeping?” the concerned King asked. “We are coming soon, for the commemoration.”

Gareth was only six when his teacher pushed him through a classroom window and school caretaker Stephen Andrew pulled him to safety, telling him: “Run boy, run home.”

Stephen’s great-grandsons, Noah Jones, 10, and his nine-year-old brother Charlie, stood alongside Gareth as they presented a posy to the Queen.

Noah first met Gareth by chance when Gareth visited his school to give a talk. He described being rescued by the school caretaker without realising that the caretaker’s descendant was sitting in front of him.

Between them was a framed photograph of the late Duke of Edinburgh speaking to Gareth’s family as the young boy looked on, a day after the disaster. The King studied the image before smiling and saying: “I recognise him!”

The King and Queen were also introduced to Len Moss, an off-duty nurse who rushed to Pantglas School after the disaster. He spent two days washing the faces and hands of children recovered from the rubble so their loved ones could identify them.

Charles and Camilla were in Cardiff for the opening of the Welsh Parliament, with the King taking part in the ceremony for the first time since becoming monarch.

Their arrival in Cardiff Bay was met by a small protest. Demonstrators held yellow “Not My King” placards and shouted the slogan, as well as “Down with the crown.”

Beyond the protest, the welcome was warm. The royal couple were greeted by First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth and Llywydd, or presiding officer, Huw Irranca-Davies. They were also introduced to the Welsh leaders of Plaid Cymru, Labour, Reform, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats.

After passing representatives from the King’s Trust, Cardiff’s Chinese Community, Learning Disability Wales and Welsh Women’s Aid, Charles and Camilla followed mace bearer Delyth Lewis into the Siambr. Lewis is the first woman to hold the role.

Inside the refurbished circular chamber, the King addressed the expanded 96-member assembly in both English and Welsh.

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Paying tribute to the people of Aberfan, he said: “The Welsh people, from all communities and faiths, are rightly famed for the strength of their sense of belonging – and next week, together with The Queen and The Prince of Wales, I will be visiting Aberfan to commemorate the solemn anniversary of a tragedy that brought Wales to the attention, and to the hearts, of the entire world – for the most unbearable of reasons.

“I am enormously touched that people from the Aberfan community are with us today. There could be no finer witnesses to the strength of the Welsh – and the human – spirit.”

Charles and Camilla will visit the community with Prince William on October 21, exactly 60 years after the disaster.

Elsewhere, there was laughter as he cited the title of a famous Welsh protest song Yma o Hyd, now adopted as the anthem of the Welsh football team, saying of the expanded Senedd: ‘There are many new faces – as well, of course, as the reassuring presence of familiar faces who are, we might say, Yma o Hyd [still here].

He ended his speech to applause, saying: ‘Pob bendith ar eich gwaith er lles y wlad arbennig hon. [Heartfelt thanks for your work for the welfare and success of this special land.]’ 

Speaking afterwards Noah, from Troedyrhiw, the next village along from Aberfan, said he was, ‘Excited, nervous, but happy,’ to meet the King and Queen.

Their mother Gemma Bray said of the King: ‘He said how handsome they both were. And he said how proud you must be.’ She said the Queen told the boys, ‘You look like twins. And she said that she has twins in her family. And they always fight!’

Gareth, who will be reunited with the King and Queen at next week’s commemoration events in Aberfan, said: ‘Today has been absolutely emotional, but it’s been an amazing day for me.’

Recalling his meeting with Prince Philip back in 1966, he said: ‘He actually shot down to Aberfan to visit the day after the disaster. Our house got wrecked, really all water, flood water. So we had to go a few days down with my grandma and grandpa.

Philip was walking down the street when he spotted Gareth and his older siblings sitting on the front wall and came straight over.

‘I’m convinced he stopped because there were children there. There were no other children there because unfortunately they were never to return home,’ said Gareth.

The late Queen Elizabeth II famously delayed visiting Aberfan in the wake of the tragedy, not wanting to disrupt the rescue operation, a decision which prompted criticism at the time.

‘The Queen came about a week later,’ recalls Gareth. ‘When she came to Aberfan, everybody welcomed her with open arms, and she kept a promise that day that [she would] always come back to Aberfan and keep in contact, and she did.

‘Charles has stepped now into her shoes. William is going to be our next king. He then will step into his shoes and will probably contact people in Aberfan and keep it going.’

Fox News anchor Bret Baier challenged Donald Trump’s claim that inflation had fallen from 19 percent to 1.7 percent during a Wednesday broadcast of Special Report.

Baier, 56, noted that the latest figure was “actually closer to 2.4 percent” before introducing a graphic showing that overall prices had increased 3.7 percent over the past year.

“Costs. That’s really what this election has been about. If you look at the polls, higher costs,” Baier said. The data came from the same inflation report Trump appeared to misstate during a pre-midterm rally in Montana earlier Wednesday.

Baier then turned to another chart tracking the president’s sharply declining approval rating on inflation.

“And you see the difference there, from January and from March of last year,” Baier said, highlighting a drop in approval from 35 percent to 22 percent following the United States’ first strikes on Iran. Disruptions in oil markets sent domestic prices soaring.

The decline was even steeper compared with March of the previous year, when 40 percent of registered voters surveyed approved of Trump’s handling of inflation, Baier noted.

A panel discussion followed, during which Wall Street Journal reporter Meridith McGraw said Americans “aren’t buying” the administration’s economic talking points.

Baier also cited a Fox poll showing Democratic congressional candidates with an advantage over Republicans. The finding came days after Fox correspondent Peter Doocy questioned Trump’s assertion that the Pentagon would not strike Iran before the midterm elections.

An Atlantic report published the previous week suggested that such a strategy could be under consideration as Republicans seek political gains ahead of the elections.

The report attributed the information to two unnamed administration officials.

“It’s clearly in the Democrats’ corner,” Baier said as an on-screen graphic showed Democrats holding a six-point lead among voters who said they were certain to cast a ballot.

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“People are really frustrated with how the White House has handled issues like inflation,” McGraw said.

Baier noted that Democrats would argue the elevated inflation rate Trump inherited was largely a consequence of the pandemic.

The discussion later shifted to Kamala Harris, who is scheduled to campaign in New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Mississippi and Florida later this month.

October’s inflation data will not be released until November 10, several days after Election Day.

Trump previously criticized Special Report in August after chief correspondent Jonathan Hunt told viewers that there had been “no significant developments” in peace talks between Iran and the United States.

Trump framed Hunt as a ‘flunky’ in a scathing social media post, leading to a curt on-air response from Baier.

‘First of all, Jonathan is not a flunky. He’s a great reporter,’ the anchor said live, after taking the time to read the Truth Social post. 

‘Second of all, Mr President, we didn’t say you wanted to meet.’

The anchor pointed out how producers merely played a clip of Trump telling reporters that there was ‘not a lot to speak with Iran, we are not looking to meet or anything,’ and that ‘the [Strait of Hormuz] is open.’

Baier emphasized: ‘You didn’t want to meet, and there are negotiations.’

The Daily Mail has reached out to Fox News and the White House for comment.