London Evening Standard/London
Millionaire art collector Charles Saatchi yesterday spoke about why he accepted a police caution for assaulting his wife Nigella Lawson. He said he voluntarily attended a police station where he was questioned for four hours about pictures which showed him holding the celebrity cook around the throat during an argument outside a Mayfair restaurant.
He told the Standard yesterday: “Although Nigella made no complaint I volunteered to go to Charing Cross police station and take a police caution after a discussion with my lawyer because I thought it was better than the alternative of this hanging over all of us for months.”
So far Lawson, a popular cookery writer and TV presenter, has refused to comment. Her spokesman has confirmed only that she and her children have left the family home but would not say whether this was permanent.
However, friends say the couple appeared relaxed and normal in the days following the argument at Scott’s restaurant, even holding two dinner parties for family and friends at their London home.
They said that they were known to have occasional arguments but there was nothing in their relationship to suggest anything more serious.
Scotland Yard announced details of the caution saying that officers from the community safety unit at Westminster were aware of the photographs and had carried out an investigation.
A spokesman said: “On June 17, a 70-year-old man voluntarily attended a central London police station and accepted a caution for assault.” Police said he was not arrested.
The couple, who have been married for 10 years, were photographed having an argument on the terrace of Scott’s seafood restaurant on June 9.
Lawson, 53, the daughter of former Tory chancellor Nigel Lawson, was reportedly seen tearful in the street afterwards.
Saatchi, the co-founder of the Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency, told the Standard on Monday that the photographs merely showed the result of a “playful tiff”.
The art collector, who owns the Saatchi Gallery, admitted they were having an “intense debate” and the pictures looked “horrific”. He said: “I held Nigella’s neck repeatedly while attempting to emphasise my point. There was no grip, it was a playful tiff. The pictures are horrific but give a far more drastic and violent impression of what took place. Nigella’s tears were because we both hate arguing, not because she had been hurt.”
He said they had “made up” by the time they got home and he claims he told his wife to leave the house “until the dust settled”.
A new exhibition called Paper opened at the Saatchi Gallery on the King’s Road yesterday. Saatchi did not attend.