'IT WAS NO CHOKE'

Saatchi tells of Nigella heartbreak

CHARLES Saatchi has spoken in detail for the first time about the infamous restaurant row with Nigella Lawson, claiming he was only holding his ex-wife by the throat “to make her focus”.

Saatchi told the Isleworth Crown Court in London that he did not “throttle” the TV chef when he was photographed with his hands around her neck as they argued at Scott’s restaurant in Mayfair, London, in June.

The incident, which was widely reported, led to the couple divorcing.

“I was not gripping, strangling or throttling her,” Saatchi told the court. “I was holding her head by the neck to make her focus. I wanted her to focus on what we were speaking about.”

During an emotional afternoon in the witness box at the trial of two former aides accused of fraud, Saatchi gave details of the moment he was told of Lawson’s “sorry depravity” as an alleged cocaine user.

Asked what the row was about, he said: “Her drug use? No.”

The jury was told of an e-mail sent by Saatchi to Lawson on October 10 this year, referring to two witness state- ments made by former aides Francesca and Elisabetta Grillo, in which they made allegations that Lawson used cocaine, dagga and prescription drugs on a daily basis.

In the e-mail, he said that when he read the allegations “I could only laugh at your sorry depravity”, and said she now had “the pass you desired, free to heartily enjoy all the drugs you want forever”.

Asked what he meant by this, he said: “In one of the very rare conversations I have had with Nigella since we split, I asked her whether she was happy and she said yes, she was happy. I said: ‘What was this all about?’ She said: ‘I’m happy because I don’t feel I have to ask for a pass to do what I feel like doing.’ And I said: ‘You never had to ask for a pass.’ ”

Saatchi and Lawson, who divorced in July, were accused earlier in the trial of “manipulating” the criminal justice system to sling mud at each other free from the threat of libel proceedings.

Not so, said Saatchi: “I’m utterly heartbroken that I have lost Nigella.” — © The Daily Telegraph, London

See Page 5 of the third section, Opinion & Analysis