Drugs claims a ‘ridiculous sideshow’ to trial, says Nigella

Elisabetta and Francesca Grillo were accused of spending £685,000 on credit cards belonging to Nigella Lawson and her ex-husband Charles Saatchi, who divorced in July.

The jury at Isleworth Crown Court, west London, found both sisters not guilty of a single count of fraud each. After nine hours of deliberation, they were not convinced by Ms Lawson or Mr Saatchi’s claims that the sisters did not have permission to spend the money.

Mr Saatchi had been accused of using the trial against the Grillo sisters to “attack” his former wife and Anthony Metzer QC said that his client Elisabetta had been caught up in the “crossfire” between the former couple.

In a statement, the TV chef and cookery writer said she had been “maliciously vilified” in court, without being able to defend herself, and said she did everything she could to inform the CPS about what she called a “sustained background campaign deliberately to destroy my reputation”.

“Over the three-week trial the jury was faced with a ridiculous sideshow of false allegations about drug use which made focus on the actual criminal trial impossible,” she said. “During the trial not one witness claimed to see me take drugs and not one of my three assistants was asked about these claims by the defence, despite being cross-examined at length. I did my civic duty, only to be maliciously vilified without the right to respond.”

Jury has found #Nigella ‘s assistants NOT guilty which means they did not believe Nigella Lawson’s claims. #c4news

— Fatima Manji (@fatimamanji) December 20, 2013

Can now report David Cameron’s remark that he was “a massive fan” and #teamNigella almost collapsed the Grillo trial #c4news

— Fatima Manji (@fatimamanji) December 20, 2013

Neither defendant was in court to hear the verdicts but there was a cry of “yes” from someone in the public gallery. Elisabetta was rushed to hospital last night after a panic attack, and collapsed again on Friday morning as she arrived at court. Mr Metzer said his client was “relieved” and “crying her eyes out”. The sisters’ solicitor Richard Cannon said his clients were “naturally relieved” at the verdicts after a “long hard fight played out in the gaze of the world’s media”.

Elisabetta, 41, sometimes referred to in court as Lisa, and Francesca, 35, had been accused of living the “high life” and using the cards loaned to them by the celebrity couple to buy designer goods. Francesca was accused of spending the largest amount on herself – £580,000.

But the sisters insisted all of their purchases had been authorised by Ms Lawson in return for not telling Mr Saatchi about her drug use.

Nigella ‘on trial’

The Grillo sisters may have been the ones in the dock. But Ms Lawson’s told the court that she felt like she was on trial, after her alleged drug use was used as a central plank of the defence.

The celebrity couple’s ex-assistants said that they had been given permission to spend money on luxury items including clothes and shoes in return for keeping quiet about Ms Lawson’s drug use. In his summing up, Judge Robin Johnson told the jury to consider the TV chef’s alleged drug habit when coming to a decision, saying that whether the jury believed Ms Lawson or the Grillo sisters was relevant to the trial.

Ms Lawson was forced to defend accusations of cocaine use from the Grillo sisters, and an email from Mr Saatchi, in which he calls her “Higella”, that was used by the Grillo’s defence lawyer. Francesca Grillo told Isleworth crown court that she frequently” saw rolled up bank notes in Ms Lawson’s handbag, and that Ms Lawson would sometimes come downstairs with white powder on her nose, that was “too white to be make-up”.

Of course now the Grillos will get off on the basis that you … were so off your heads on drugs that you allowed the sisters to spend whatever they liked – Charles Saatchi

The email from Mr Saatchi read: “Of course now the Grillos will get off on the basis that you … were so off your heads on drugs that you allowed the sisters to spend whatever they liked and yes I believe every word the Grillos have said, who after all only stole money.”

Ms Lawson told the court that Mr Saatchi was behind the “false” rumours of her drug addiction and denied that she had a problem. She acknowledged taking cocaine with her late husband John Diamond when he found out he had terminal cancer, and once in July 2010 when she was being “subjected to intimate terrorism by Mr Saatchi”.

She also admitted to smoking cannabis “relatively recently” to make “an intolerable situation tolerable”, referring to her relationship.

A marriage laid bare

The trial took place just months after the celebrity couple ended their ten year marriage in July. And while the recent court case put the Grillos in the stand, the nature of the marriage between the celebrity chef and the millionaire art dealer was pored over by lawyers and the media.

The divorce followed the publication in June of photos showing Mr Saatchi pinching Ms Lawson’s nose and with his hands around her neck while the pair were at the west London restaurant, Scott’s.

Mr Saatchi accepted a police caution for the incident, but wrote a number of columns in the Evening Standard newspaper defending the incident as a “playful tiff”.

Before taking the stand earlier in December, Ms Lawson had made no public statement on the incident, or the divorce. She told the court that she had been reluctant to give evidence in the trial against her former PAs because she thought that details of her marriage breakdown would be made public, but said her ex-husband had threatened to “destroy” her, if she didn’t appear as a witness.

‘You don’t cross Charles Saatchi’

What emerged of Mr Saatchi – according to Ms Lawson and the Grillo sisters’ evidence – was a picture of a controlling man whose bad moods had radiated through everyone in the household.

Ms Lawson said he had a temper, and was “irritated” by her independence. The court heard from another witness that Mr Saatchi had discouraged Ms Lawson from pursuing a career in the US, while Ms Grillo recalled his confrontation with her when he first accused the sisters of spending his money.

“He said he was going to destroy me and hunt me down,” she said. “That was his words. His voice was shouting and he was banging on the table and accusing me of various things that were not true.

“The more he got upset, the more I got frightened. You don’t cross Charles Saatchi, everyone knows that.”

For his part, Mr Saatchi told the court he was “bereft” that the “Higella” email had been made public, that he “adored” his former wife, and said he had no evidence as to whether she had taken drugs.