Re: Nigella Lawson "attacked by husband" at Restaurant

**Panda** Thu 5 Dec - 7:50

kitti wrote:Whether she was taking drugs is her business.

The thieves and probably HIM are using this to manipulate the trial.

They are thieves.

HE is a nasty jealous piece off work.

How did the email get out into the publics Domain .

'oh I am beside myself that this private email got out'.....Bullshit.

Let's hope the Judge gets back on track and concentrates on the Trial , Kitti , if Saatchi was such a Ba***** Nigella would have left him a long time ago .

**Claudia79** Thu 5 Dec - 13:12

How anyone can defend an abuser is beyond me. If that's the kind of thing he felt comfortable doing in public, I don't want to imagine what he did behind closed doors.
As for women not leaving abusing husbands or partners or boyfriends, there are many reasons and some difficult for people on the outside to understand. A bit similar to the reasons why people don't report sexual abuse: dependence (financial and emotional), fear, shame, etc.

**Panda** Thu 5 Dec - 13:23

This Trial is becoming a farce, all today it has dealt with the cocaine , nothing to do with the girls embezzeling money.

**Lioned** Thu 5 Dec - 14:32

Claudia79 wrote:How anyone can defend an abuser is beyond me. If that's the kind of thing he felt comfortable doing in public, I don't want to imagine what he did behind closed doors.
As for women not leaving abusing husbands or partners or boyfriends, there are many reasons and some difficult for people on the outside to understand. A bit similar to the reasons why people don't report sexual abuse: dependence (financial and emotional), fear, shame, etc.

Sadly some people fail to see what a manipulative bully is capable of and prefer to bleat on about cocaine which is far more interesting.

**malena stool** Thu 5 Dec - 15:41

The judge should keep the line of questions limited to reflecting on the case in hand.

**wjk** Thu 5 Dec - 17:04

Claudia79 wrote:How anyone can defend an abuser is beyond me. If that's the kind of thing he felt comfortable doing in public, I don't want to imagine what he did behind closed doors.
As for women not leaving abusing husbands or partners or boyfriends, there are many reasons and some difficult for people on the outside to understand. A bit similar to the reasons why people don't report sexual abuse: dependence (financial and emotional), fear, shame, etc.

100% agree, Claudia! Nigella Lawson "attacked by husband" at Restaurant - Page 5 307691

**Claudia79** Fri 6 Dec - 0:50

Lioned wrote:
Claudia79 wrote:How anyone can defend an abuser is beyond me. If that's the kind of thing he felt comfortable doing in public, I don't want to imagine what he did behind closed doors.
As for women not leaving abusing husbands or partners or boyfriends, there are many reasons and some difficult for people on the outside to understand. A bit similar to the reasons why people don't report sexual abuse: dependence (financial and emotional), fear, shame, etc.
Sadly some people fail to see what a manipulative bully is capable of and prefer to bleat on about cocaine which is far more interesting.

Exactly. And from his behaviour, I wouldn't be surprised if one of the 'maneuvers' he used to keep her under his domination was blackmail.

**Claudia79** Fri 6 Dec - 0:51

wjk wrote:
Claudia79 wrote:How anyone can defend an abuser is beyond me. If that's the kind of thing he felt comfortable doing in public, I don't want to imagine what he did behind closed doors.
As for women not leaving abusing husbands or partners or boyfriends, there are many reasons and some difficult for people on the outside to understand. A bit similar to the reasons why people don't report sexual abuse: dependence (financial and emotional), fear, shame, etc.
100% agree, Claudia!

Nigella Lawson "attacked by husband" at Restaurant - Page 5 83453

**AnnaEsse** Fri 6 Dec - 6:46

Claudia79 wrote:
wjk wrote:
Claudia79 wrote:How anyone can defend an abuser is beyond me. If that's the kind of thing he felt comfortable doing in public, I don't want to imagine what he did behind closed doors.
As for women not leaving abusing husbands or partners or boyfriends, there are many reasons and some difficult for people on the outside to understand. A bit similar to the reasons why people don't report sexual abuse: dependence (financial and emotional), fear, shame, etc.
100% agree, Claudia!

Thanks Claudia. I was a volunteer for Women's Aid for 11 years and I saw a lot of women in that time who were leaving violent men.

**wjk** Fri 6 Dec - 8:12

Claudia79 wrote:
Lioned wrote:
Claudia79 wrote:How anyone can defend an abuser is beyond me. If that's the kind of thing he felt comfortable doing in public, I don't want to imagine what he did behind closed doors.
As for women not leaving abusing husbands or partners or boyfriends, there are many reasons and some difficult for people on the outside to understand. A bit similar to the reasons why people don't report sexual abuse: dependence (financial and emotional), fear, shame, etc.
Sadly some people fail to see what a manipulative bully is capable of and prefer to bleat on about cocaine which is far more interesting.
Exactly. And from his behaviour, I wouldn't be surprised if one of the 'maneuvers' he used to keep her under his domination was blackmail.

My thought too! Blackmail.
He was a bully and from what we have seen, had a violent side.
I think its disgusting that Nigella has had to come to court and face this kind of questioning.
Lets hope the court case now gets back to the two women actually on trial!!

**Claudia79** Fri 6 Dec - 18:04

AnnaEsse wrote:
Claudia79 wrote:
wjk wrote:
Claudia79 wrote:How anyone can defend an abuser is beyond me. If that's the kind of thing he felt comfortable doing in public, I don't want to imagine what he did behind closed doors.
As for women not leaving abusing husbands or partners or boyfriends, there are many reasons and some difficult for people on the outside to understand. A bit similar to the reasons why people don't report sexual abuse: dependence (financial and emotional), fear, shame, etc.
100% agree, Claudia!

Thanks Claudia. I was a volunteer for Women's Aid for 11 years and I saw a lot of women in that time who were leaving violent men.

, Anna!

**Claudia79** Fri 6 Dec - 18:06

wjk wrote:
Claudia79 wrote:
Lioned wrote:
Claudia79 wrote:How anyone can defend an abuser is beyond me. If that's the kind of thing he felt comfortable doing in public, I don't want to imagine what he did behind closed doors.
As for women not leaving abusing husbands or partners or boyfriends, there are many reasons and some difficult for people on the outside to understand. A bit similar to the reasons why people don't report sexual abuse: dependence (financial and emotional), fear, shame, etc.
Sadly some people fail to see what a manipulative bully is capable of and prefer to bleat on about cocaine which is far more interesting.
Exactly. And from his behaviour, I wouldn't be surprised if one of the 'maneuvers' he used to keep her under his domination was blackmail.
My thought too! Blackmail.
He was a bully and from what we have seen, had a violent side.
I think its disgusting that Nigella has had to come to court and face this kind of questioning.
Lets hope the court case now gets back to the two women actually on trial!!

Exactly, wjk! It's a bit like women who are raped and end up being on trial themselves and forced to defend the way they were dressed, why they were where they were at that time, etc.

wantthetruth Fri 6 Dec - 18:29

As if taking a few lines of coke somehow makes it OK for him to throttle her.

And as for saying women could leave if they wanted to Nigella Lawson "attacked by husband" at Restaurant - Page 5 948585

Nigella Lawson "attacked by husband" at Restaurant - Page 5 948585

It must be nice to have led such a sheltered life.

**Panda** Sat 7 Dec - 8:55

Oh for a little of Nigella Lawson’s courtroom brilliance

That leonine creature in the witness box is an inspiration for all those baffled by Mr Barrister

Referring to her own voluptuousness, Nigella Lawson said in court: 'You know as well as I do that regular cocaine users don’t look like this'

Referring to her own voluptuousness, Nigella Lawson said in court: 'You know as well as I do that regular cocaine users don’t look like this' Photo: GETTY

Vicki Woods
By Vicki Woods

7:29PM GMT 06 Dec 2013

If I honestly thought that cocaine had the power to gift me as much quick-wittedness and high courage as Nigella Lawson exuded in court this week, I’d have taken it myself whenever I had the opportunity. Of course, I often did have the opportunity, working on glossy magazines, in London offices. There was always someone on the art desk who’d come in whey-faced and dead tired of a morning and not get a grip on tasks until he’d nipped out “for a coffee”, after which he’d cheer up like billy-o.

The bold brilliance Nigella displayed is astonishing even to read in a newspaper; it must have clanged in court like a peal of Stedman Caters on cathedral bells. She tells Karin Arden, defending one of the Grillo sisters, that she, Nigella, is not the one who is on trial here, but a witness for the Crown. Also, referring to her own voluptuousness, “You know as well as I do that regular cocaine users don’t look like this.”

When she was addressed as “Mrs Saatchi”, she snapped: “WHAT did you call me?” She was asked question after question about drugs, to which she provided answer after answer until the judge stepped in and stopped the cross-examination. I was cross-examined in court once, as a character witness to a friend who wanted custody of her children after divorce. I was stiff with nerves and the husband’s barrister was laying “Yes or no? True or false?” traps which I fell into again and again.

I was in my twenties but looked like a round-faced schoolgirl. I could only play to my weakness and whimper to the judge that Mr Barrister was not letting me finish and muddling me up, sniff, sob, so could I please explain to him, his lordship, what I was trying to say? It worked, and my friend won custody, but how much more fabulous to be that leonine creature in the witness box growling with rage at the indignities being done to her.

Wouldn’t you like to see someone with her skills in Parliament, running those limping home affairs question-and-answer bore-a-thons instead of Keith Vaz?

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While I’ve seen her across myriad rooms at parties, I don’t know Nigella Lawson any better than most viewers of her cookery programmes do. Though I try hard not to watch anybody’s cookery programmes much, I have a viewer’s view of her: pouting, tempting, luscious, lovely, slipping downstairs in her dressing-gown after the credits have run, to sneak another slice of cake, ooh, yummy.

But when I worked for The Spectator, during the Major years, I came across her sometimes, at a dinner at the Groucho Club for somebody’s press award or other, where she was with her first husband and father of her children, lovely John Diamond. Once she blew into the office straight from a screening – or possibly the airport. She was such a powerful, gleaming, beautiful creature – like seeing a bouncing shire horse glossed and polished for a pony show – and she told us yes, yes, yes: we should see Pretty Woman, and soon, because Julia Roberts was quite wonderful and Richard Gere divine, but of course it was a tart’s movie, so – byee!

She is one of four children, and the only boy is referred to as “the princeling”. I was curious about the Lawson sisters’ masculinised names: Thomasina, Nigella, Horatia. I didn’t realise it was a Scottish affectation until I was looking up an obituary on the Daily Herald’s website and found Hughinas and Robertinas all over the shop.

She has made her angry ex-husband look like a sap and a sullen loser. She has removed at a stroke the miserable and low-rent and annoyingly boring descriptor for the actions of a man who twists a woman’s nose or grips her throat. She has suffered, she said in court (rather thrillingly) “intimate terrorism”, and this Americanism will soon be part of the public vocabulary. She’s trending at 90 per cent favourable on the blogosphere, whatever that means

**AnnaEsse** Sat 7 Dec - 9:07

For me, the definitive research on violence against women was been carried out by Russell and Rebecca Dobash in the 1980s, who were then working at Stirling university. They interviewed thousands of women going through Scottish courts about the violence from their partners. When they asked women why they stayed with violent men and went back to them, the most common answer was that they loved the men and wanted to believe that they would change. Many women also felt that the law could not protect them from men who would hunt them down. There were women who had nowhere to go and no one who would support them and lots of other responses about financial dependency, threats to kill, take the children etc.

There is also very good research by Professor Liz Kelly of London Metropolitan university.

http://www.redemptionblues.com/?p=256

**Panda** Sat 7 Dec - 9:50

Yes, I'd go along with that AnnaEsse, you only have to look at the Philpotts as an example. As you say, , lack of self esteem, poverty , love even, are reasons why Women stay with violent Men. If NBY is right and Nigella was having a fling with Saatchi before her Husband died it doesn't say much for her morals and if he was such a villain why stay with him for 10 years?

**AnnaEsse** Sat 7 Dec - 9:53

Panda wrote:Yes, I'd go along with that AnnaEsse, you only have to look at the Philpotts as an example. As you say, , lack of self esteem, poverty , love even, are reasons why Women stay with violent Men. If NBY is right and Nigella was having a fling with Saatchi before her Husband died it doesn't say much for her morals and if he was such a villain why stay with him for 10 years?

Panda, we don't know why Nigella stayed with him for 10 years. I do know that some women feel ashamed, that somehow they have brought this on themselves and so keep trying to get things right.

**Panda** Sat 7 Dec - 11:22

AnnaEsse wrote:
Panda wrote:Yes, I'd go along with that AnnaEsse, you only have to look at the Philpotts as an example. As you say, , lack of self esteem, poverty , love even, are reasons why Women stay with violent Men. If NBY is right and Nigella was having a fling with Saatchi before her Husband died it doesn't say much for her morals and if he was such a villain why stay with him for 10 years?
Panda, we don't know why Nigella stayed with him for 10 years. I do know that some women feel ashamed, that somehow they have brought this on themselves and so keep trying to get things right.

Nigella strikes me as a strong personality and this case has become a Saatchi/Lawson case, not embezzlement by the girls which is a shame. It will be interesting to know what the girls have to say.
I didn't watch Nigella's Programme very often, felt she was being quite seductive describing the recipe etc , that comment "gastroporn" is funny. LOL

**wjk** Sat 7 Dec - 18:16

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2518729/Nigella-Lawson-started-seeing-Charles-Saatchi-long-husband-died.html

Nigella admits she started seeing Charles Saatchi 'not very long' after her first husband died of cancer
Nigella Lawson's first husband John Diamond died in 2001 from cancer
She later started seeing Charles Saatchi and they married in 2003
Miss Lawson admitted snorting cocaine six times with Mr Diamond while he was terminally ill as he tried to relieve his pain
She then took the drug again in 2010 while married to Mr Saatchi

By Rob Cooper

PUBLISHED: 13:56, 5 December 2013 | UPDATED: 16:27, 5 December 2013

41 shares

Nigella Lawson admitted that she started seeing Charles Saatchi 'not very long' after the death of her first husband, as she gave evidence to a jury for a second day.

Miss Lawson, 53, married Mr Saatchi in 2003 just two years after John Diamond died from cancer at the age of 47.

The self-styled Domestic Goddess told Isleworth Crown Court that she snorted cocaine with Mr Diamond six times in the last two years of his life while he was terminally ill.

After they took the Class A drug together, she told the jury she didn't take it again until 2010 when Mr Saatchi had subjected her to 'intimate terrorism'.

Miss Lawson is giving evidence against her former PAs Francesca and Elisabetta Grillo who are accused of spending £685,000 on themselves using the millionaire art dealer's company credit cards.

She told the jury today that she 'became involved' with Mr Saatchi after Mr Diamond passed away.

'It would be fair to say that not very long after my first husband died I began to become involved with Mr Saatchi,' she said.

Miss Lawson married journalist John Diamond in 1992 in a ceremony in Venice and they later had two children together.

But he was diagnosed with throat cancer and died in 2001 after a four-year battle against the disease.

To relieve his pain, he turned to cocaine and Miss Lawson said she also snorted the drug.

She told the jury yesterday: 'I did speak to a doctor of palliative care because I was troubled about whether I should let John continue, and he said just let him. And so I didn't judge or begrudge.'

But she said claims that credit cards and envelopes containing white powder were left around the home she shared with Mr Diamond in Shepherds Bush, west London, were 'completely false'.

She added: 'He didn't take it for very long because there are some miseries you cannot escape.

'You asked me if there were rolled up notes with white powder at the desk and I said no.

'The idea that he would let his study become squalid is unbelievable.

'I did take it in a rolled up note, but there were not rolled up notes everywhere. It is something that everyone knows, that cocaine is taken like that. It is a very easy story to fabricate.

'It is not true.'

Jurors have been told that Elisabetta Grillo started working for Miss Lawson in 1999 as Mr Diamond battled the illness.

She was initially brought in as an au pair to look after her children after Mr Diamond had been diagnosed with cancer.

Her sister Francesca was recruited in 2001 and, although their role changed over the years, they stayed with the TV chef for the duration of her marriage to Mr Saatchi.

Miss Lawson told the jury yesterday that Lisa had been a 'rock' when Mr Diamond was terminally ill with cancer.

'Sometimes I had to rush to hospital, she would stand in,' she told the court. 'She was my rock. I will never forget what she did for my family.'

Francesca Grillo, 35, and her sister Elisabetta, 41, are accused of committing fraud by abusing their positions by using a company credit card for personal gain.

Prosecutors claim the Italian sisters lived the 'high life', spending the money on designer clothes and handbags from Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and Vivienne Westwood.

The pair are accused of using credit cards loaned to them by the TV cook and her ex-husband to spend more than £685,000 on themselves between 2008 and 2012.

The Grillo sisters, of Bayswater, west London, deny the charge against them.

The case continues.

**Panda** Sun 8 Dec - 7:15

Thanks wjk.......let's hope the Judge now turns to the Sisters which is really what this lawsuit is about. I find it very odd that these girls spent so much money without it being detected earlier, that is averaging £67,000 a year!!!!

**Panda** Thu 12 Dec - 9:47

This was on the inside page yesterday , I will just quote bits.

Lavish spending by Nigella and Saatchi

£25,000 on Flowers for their home over 18 months

Saatchi spent more than £2,250 on cashmere jumpers for Nigella

Payment of £3.734 to Annabel's Private Members Club for Mr Saatchi's Red Wine

£5,000 for exercise bike from Harrods

Anzelle Wassermann a current member of Nigellas' innner circle known as "Team Cupcake" revealed £24,868 was spent at florists Scarlet and Violet in 21
transactions" they came once a weekand filled 5 big vases" she said

£10,564 spent on Tickets were for Glastonbury where the children went and were VIP tickets .

£2,109 for a car service used by Miss Lawson's daughter Cosima in Los Angeles

The Assistant also said Miss Lawson had also given her £10,000 wedding party at the Saatchi Gallery.

The Assistant also said the Italian Sisters frequently travelled to Paris, Berlin and New York paid for by Nigella, they also wore beautiful clothes, always dressed smartly

South African born Ms Wasserman said "I consider myself so close to them , they were like my Familyas well, Ionce lived with miss Lawson in her Battersee Property for a period of time".

Miss Wsserman admitted spending £324,000 over 4 years when the Sisters Lawyer Metzer questioned her about the £700,000 on the same credit card.

Mr Saatchis' Accountant said is was not his job to scrutinise the bils on the Credit Card.

Well either Nigella was a very generous Employer or she was unaware of what was going on.

**kitti** Thu 12 Dec - 11:24

It's there money they can buy what they like BUT someone stealing from them who is supposed to be a trusted member off staff is another matter.

All trust then goes out off the window.

**Panda** Thu 12 Dec - 13:16

It appears kitti that Nigella and Saatchi were generous Employers and the fact that no one checked the Bank Accounts until the charges against the sisters have suddenly been made after a few years.

Cameron is in the doghouse for commenting on his thoughts about Nigella, how he had met her , thought she was very nice, had watched her programme a couple of times . He said this to someone from the Spectator and the Judge said he should not comment on the case in public. !! Nigella Lawson "attacked by husband" at Restaurant - Page 5 294124

Nigella Lawson "attacked by husband" at Restaurant - Page 5 294124

I think Wassarman is dodgy, she seems to have used the Credit Card and has known Nigella for a very long time and has not been charged.

**Panda** Fri 13 Dec - 6:04

http://news.sky.com/story/1181487/signs-of-regular-drug-use-in-nigellas-home

**Panda** Sat 14 Dec - 6:55

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10516810/Nigella-let-her-children-smoke-cannabis-says-assistant.html

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