Nigella Lawson and Charles Saatchi spent £25,000 on flowers, court told

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/10/nigella-lawson-charles-saatchi-flowers-court

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Nigella Lawson and Charles Saatchi spent close to £25,000 on flowers for their home, paying up to £1,825 per order, a member of the celebrity chef's "Team Cupcake" inner circle has told the trial of two former colleagues.

Anzelle Wasserman, a personal assistant to Lawson, said she used a family credit card to pay for luxuries, including spending more than £10,000 on VIP tickets for Lawson and Saatchi's children to attend the 2010 Glastonbury music festival, for which general entry tickets went on sale to the public at £185.

In another insight into the household's finances, Wasserman told the jury at Isleworth crown court that she paid £2,250 for cashmere sweaters at the request of Saatchi, who wanted her to buy his wife every colour in two different styles from the Shi Cashmere boutique in Belgravia.

She said she settled bills of £5,900 at Soho House private members club, and £4,744 at Harrods for an exercise bike for the family.

In total Wasserman spent £324,401 in four years on the family's card. The spending on flowers came over 17 months in 2011 and 2012 to fill five large vases in the family's Chelsea home.

Wasserman was giving evidence as a prosecution witness in the fraud trial of her former colleagues Elisabetta and Francesca Grillo, Italian sisters accused spending of £685,000 on the family's accounts without authorisation.

They have claimed the spending was authorised by Lawson as part of a tacit understanding that they would not tell Saatchi about Lawson's alleged use of cocaine and cannabis. Last week Lawson told the court that she had taken cocaine when her first husband was dying and again in 2010, arguing that on those occasions she did not have a drugs problem but "a life problem".

Wasserman, who came from South Africa as a tutor for the couple's children in 2004, said she considered Lawson and Saatchi "my family in the UK". She said she was only allowed to use a credit card given to her by Saatchi for household spending, which averaged around £5,000 a month. She told the jury she would not even buy herself a pint of milk without getting a receipt and replacing the money in the family's petty cash tin.

Under cross-examination by Anthony Metzer QC, counsel for Elisabetta Grillo, she was asked to say whether transactions on a Coutts credit card were for her personal use and she repeatedly said they were not, except for a haircut that Lawson had allowed her to buy for her birthday. She was unable to recall why more than £5,000 had been spent on her card on Virgin flights.

Metzer put to Wasserman that it was a case of "there but for the grace of God go I", that her spending was in a similar form to that of Elisabetta Grillo and that Grillo's "was perfectly lawful and authorised, just like yours". Wasserman replied: "No."

The court also heard details of an email sent to by the Grillo sisters to Lawson and Saatchi last year after an internal investigation into their spending had begun. It was titled "Please forgive us" and began by telling the couple they were in "utmost despair".

The duo wrote that they were "reaching out to you in the sincere hope that somewhere in your hearts you will find a way to forgive us", and added: "There is not a worst [sic] feeling thinking we have in any way let down our family and we are deeply sorry and full of regret. All we want to do is put this right and make amends."

Earlier Saatchi's accountant, Rahul Gajjar, said spending on the staff credit card accounts, which reached as high as £100,000 a month, had not been checked for several years. "The summaries were looked at and the details were not scrutinised," Gajjar said. "They were put through the ledger and filed away."

Gajaar said he had not checked the accounts because he was responsible for business, not household spending. The trial continues.

The Grillo sisters' email

"We are reaching out to you in the sincere hope that somewhere in your hearts you will find a way to forgive us and believe that we never meant in any way to be seem to be disloyal or to seem like we took advantage of our positions. We truly believe that we had a bond like a family. You were, as you often said to us, our English family and we saw you like a mother and father figure in our lives over these 10-14 years that we have known you. There is not a worst feeling thinking we have in any way let down our family and we are deeply sorry and full of regret. All we want to do is put this right and make amends. From the bottom of our hearts we extend an olive branch in the hope that you will understand we never ever meant to hurt in any way."

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