It turns out free speech can be quite expensive
Katie Hopkins has allegedly entered into an IVA (Individual Voluntary Agreement) in order to avoid bankruptcy, more than a year after losing a libel case to food writer Jack Monroe.
An IVA is an agreement with creditors to pay off debts in regular instalments to an insolvency practitioner, who distribute the money appropriately to creditors.
Katie Hopkins lost the libel case against Monroe in March 2017, and was made to pay £24,000 in damages to the author she had wrongly accused of defacing a war memorial at a protest.
https://twitter.com/BootstrapCook/status/1041007160765894658
On Saturday, Monroe revealed on Twitter that she had not been able to reveal this information until now for legal reasons, but stated that ‘Hopkins has entered into an IVA to avoid bankruptcy’. She went on to say ‘he arbitrary defender of free speech didn’t want anyone to know, ironically…’
“I have been paid in full, but many of her creditors, including my lawyer, will not be paid what they are owed. For the want of an apology, a house, a job, a column, a radio show, and now financial solvency, were lost. It’s all very sad, actually,” Monroe said.
Their third and final tweet concluded that: “I’m not cruel nor celebrating – that case cost me 18 months of sanity and work, and I think neither of us wanted it to turn out this way. (I can recommend an excellent budget cookery book or three, for getting back on your feet, though).”
Hopkins has not publicly responded to reports of the IVA deal.
