CELEBRITY chef Nigella Lawson has admitted taking cocaine but said it was at difficult times in her life including amid "acts of intimate terrorism" by her then husband Charles Saatchi.
In sensational evidence at lsleworth Crown Court in London’s west, a composed but at times emotional Lawson outlined intimate moments in her life including with the "brilliant but brutal" Saatchi.
She also gave her version of events behind those photographs that made headlines around the world, depicting Saatchi appearing to throttle his wife earlier this year while at an outdoor table at the upmarket Scott’s restaurant in Mayfair in central London.
She said contrary to reports, there had not been an argument as such at that point but a customer had walked passed their table with a baby in a stroller.
“I said ‘I'm so looking forward to having grandchildren’,” Lawson recounted.
“He grabbed me by the throat and said ‘I'm the only person you should be concerned with, I am the only person that should give you pleasure’.”
She said she had put up with a long summer of bullying and abuse at the hands of her husband who said said was out to “destroy” her and her credibility.
Celebrity chef Nigella Lawson arrives at Isleworth Crown Court in London to appear as a witness at the fraud trial of her former personal assistants.
The self-made millionaire TV cook and author dismissed as lies suggestions she was a drug addict or that her house was littered with drug paraphernalia including teaspoons and white powder left discarded on the toilet top.
But the 53-year-old said she had joined her then first husband John Diamond with taking cocaine, on six occasions, after his cancer had been diagnosed as terminal about 12 years ago.
She said it gave him some escape but she did not abuse the substance as she had to look after him and the children.
She took cocaine again in July 2010 during a relationship issue with Saatchi.
“I was having a very, very difficult time. I felt subjected to acts of intimate terrorism,” she told the court.
“I felt shamed, isolated in fear and unhappy.”
Charles Saatchi has said he was sorry for the leak of an email he wrote about Nigella Lawson, in which he called her "Higella" and said she was "off her head" on drugs.
But Lawson was adamant it was “absolutely ridiculous” to suggest she was a drug addict or habitual user and certainly not having used drugs every day for 10 years of her marriage and added “people who do that are a lot thinner than I am”.
“A friend of mine offered me some cocaine. I took it,” she told the court of the 2010 incident, adding it had “completely spooked her”. She said she took the drug during a difficult time in her marriage.
“I felt I needed it to get through my life and it helped,” she said.
“I concluded that I did not have a drug problem, I had a life problem, and I needed to attend to that and I did seek out a therapist.”
While Lawson was a witness in the $1.3 million credit card fraud trial against two former assistants - Italian sisters Elisabetta and Francesca Grillo - she said that felt she was on trial in what was tantamount to a witch hunt.
“I found the answer was in changing the situation and trying to create a tolerable situation for me and my family,” she said
“I have to say, since freeing myself from a brilliant but brutal man, I'm now totally cannabis, cocaine, any drug-free.”
Lawson also admitted taking marijuana in the last year of her marriage to Saatchi, which formally ended in July this year, but said she would not know how to roll a joint and the drug use was not something of which she was proud.
She said she was greatly relieved the drug episodes were behind her as was her relationship with Saatchi, who she said had threatened her with punishment for attending a girlfriend’s birthday party. There were no beatings she said but “emotional abuse”.
Grillo defence lawyer Andrew Metzer QC then attempted to hand her photographs of Saatchi's assault to which Judge Robyn Johnson refused them to be shown.
Accused of fraud ... Elisabetta Grillo (C) and Francesca Grillo (R) arrive at Isleworth Crown Court (Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images)
But she denied claims by the Grillos that the infamous the assault was after Saatchi had found out she had authorised the women to spend up to $1.3 million of luxury goods on themselves or motivated by anger at her cocaine abuse.
She said all those claims had been made on the internet and it was astonishing Mr Metzer was giving them such credibility.
Mr Metzer asked Lawson if it was the case his clients had been drawn into the trial by Saatchi and herself and their private battle, to which she said she was the one that had actually been drawn in. Lawson also denied claims she has lied about not authorising the women to use the credit cards for themselves because she was scared of her ex-husband.
Lawson spent five hours standing in the witness box but must return tomorrow to continue her cross examination.
SOURCE:NEWS
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