Piers Morgan has defended Katie Price's decision to take her two children to the Maldives following her split with husband Peter Andre.

The former glamour model was criticised after she fled the UK with the couple's children Junior, 3, and Princess Tiaammi, 1, and left her disabled son, Harvey, 6, by footballer Dwight Yorke, at home.

But writing on his blog, the former Daily Mirror editor said the decision did not make Katie an “unfit mum”.

"The way that girl has brought up her son Harvey is quite extraordinary,” he said.

“It's been left to Katie to look after him. And given the very serious range of problems Harvey suffers from, that's a relentless, tiring and difficult job."

Piers, who is now a judge on Britain's Got Talent, added: "Call Katie a self-promoting bigmouth, call her talentless, call her a show-off. All those would be reasonably fair criticisms.

"But don't call her a bad mother. Because she's not.

“And those in the press who seem so keen to use this split to slag her off for her parenting skills should back off and shut up."

Katie's decision to travel to the Maldives is also reported to have upset Peter, who fled to Cyprus after the couple's shock split was confirmed last week.

Peter broke his silence today, saying he missed his two children “like mad”.

The couple are said to be organising crisis talks in the UK for later this week.