The complainant, who was 13 at the time of the alleged offences, wept during a police interview shown to jurors when she admitted lying to her mother about what happened because she 'didn't want her to think I was disgusting'. She told police: 'I thought it was my fault for ages,' and that she had told her mother Hayler touched her but not that it was sex because she feared that 'maybe I'd led him on'.
The complainant recounted a phone call from Hayler two or three years after the alleged incidents. She said: 'He said something like 'you promise you won't tell anyone? What we had was special - you better take it to the grave', and that it might get me into trouble.' She recalled him saying it might end badly for her, but that she had not felt frightened of him at that point.
Asked how she felt after the alleged rapes, she said: 'At the time I thought he really cares about me so he's not doing something horrible… because of the way he described it, he said it was a good thing.' She remembered having 'four showers a day after that' and her mother recalling her 'always washing' and changing her underwear 'several times' a day. She said: 'I definitely remember thinking he's a lot older than me, is this something he should be doing? I remember crying and wondering if it should have been something that happened.'
Hayler has suggested his ex-wife, Katie Price, had 'launched a campaign' against him when their marriage ended.