So it's alleged nigella took drugs with her kids?

[Bradsplit]

In the trial prosecution evidence. Aha.

Looks like backtracking on the surface - but he's already planted the seed. I suspect he is trying to look like a nice guy now ..

He earns about £2m per month, so in the scheme of things, not that much.

To be honest, he's been so very wealthy and spoiled all his life I suspect he has no idea about what's reasonable.

Very easy for the Grillo sisters to take the piss.

that's his household. It's not 'generous'; it's just a spouse putting money into the communal pot to cover household expenses. He's a multi-millionaire so he puts in more than someone on an ordinary salary.

btw, sorry for 'bizarreextraordinarybizarre' word in my earlier post, was posting from the tablet which went a bit mad.

Yes of course it's generous - these people were employed by Nigella and were long-standing employees of hers, not his, and he gave them a free rein.

I once worked for someone a lot richer than CS and every bank statement from every household, chauffeur, aeroplane etc was reconciled every month without fail, and unusual expenses flagged. All expenditure had to be vouched for. It is very generous indeed to pay bills with a blind eye.

Very generous or very stupid.

Though to be fair, before Nigella moved in, he employed a hell of a lot more domestic servants (she asked for fewer). Perhaps the household bills went down under the Grillo regime .

10% on household expenses isn't 'generous' it's proportionate. And it's his household too - he was merely paying for the upkeep of his own home and hearth.

And NOT so generous, it turns out. He now claims he didn't actually mean to spend all that money, he just didn't notice it had gone.

Very possibly the Grillos were the economy option .

On the news, it also said that NL was the one that wanted to go to the police over the Grillo's spending. If she were giving them free rein to spend as long as they kept quiet about drug taking, surely she wouldn't have done that! unless she's a damned good actress and calling bluff.

£1.2 million for a single household is a lot of money. Household consumption does not increase proportionately with income. There is only so much cocaine champagne and foie gras anyone can consume.

He has admitted in the past that he has no concept of money and had not even the faintest idea how much things cost.

Generous? Stupid? Ignorant? Couldn't care less? More money than sense? Mix of them all?

No-one would be surprised if children who were brought up in such a household had no clear concept of the value of things and of personal financial boundaries.

Surely domestic servants living in a chaotic financial (and probably in other ways) household for many, many years cannot be expected to have a normal relationship to money? If they did, they would have to leave the household - they would find it intolerable.

Also - it is HIS household too. He was paying that money out for HIS own household too!

Looks like backtracking on the surface - but he's already planted the seed. I suspect he is trying to look like a nice guy now ..

What's with the shouting? It's not his household expenditure - do you really think he was doing the grocery shopping?

I suspect his household expenses have always been utterly ridiculous. His previous wife was not known for her thrift .

It seems to be Nigella who finally questioned it and suggested calling in the police. She must have know they were taking the piss a bit, but was gobsmacked when she discovered the full extent.

They then concoct their defence.

Sometimes people in the house in a staff capacity know more than spouses. I have a close friend who had a terrible drink problem Her nanny knew the extent of it but her dh although he knew she drank had no idea about the amounts and frequency as he was majorly busy and not around more than twice a week and often away for weeks at a time.

Bonsoir - do you not think he might just have occasionally eaten at home? His daughter surely did. Household expenses are just that, they service everyone who lives in the house. Unless you think Saatchi never eats, pees, washes, walks on the carpets...

Maybe because the marriage was on the rocks (it has been reported today that Nigella moved out a year before the Scott's incident) she realised that she might have to meet her own household expenditure, and so started to look more closely at what that was? Since the Grillos were her longstanding personal assistants, they would have been the ones whose expenditure she looked at most closely. Maybe she knew what was going on and also knew that she wouldn't be able to afford to retain them at that cost and was looking for a way to get rid without paying them off?

noddy I'm sure that can happen, but generally people begin to suspect.

CS will have spent a lot of his life around cokeheads! He'll know the signs.

And it's not as if Nigella is accused of the odd line. The Grillo's are saying she is a daily user of coke, weed and prescription drugs. For ten years. That's quite a habit to keep secret from your other half.

The reality is he did not suspect anything. Lets remember there is no evidence whatsover that it's true. Only the say-so of some employees who have been charged with theft.

CS seems to have siezed on their allegations. If I'm being charitable I'd say because they give him some explanation as to why his wife has left him. If I'm not being charitable, I'd say because he wants to sling some mud. And look how it's worked!

Some people earlier (ie before today's events) were saying that Saatchi would be giving evidence for the defence. He's not - he's a witness for the prosecution. It would put have him in a peculiar position if he had started saying that Nigella was authorising the Gryllos' spending.

The question remains of how Saatchi's private email to Nigella found its way to the Gryllos' defence team.

No one should have allowed the credit card limit to be extended from £25,000 to £100k, that was a big mistake and probably sanctioned by an accountant at CS' work.

It looks like major theft to me not overstepping marks by a little bit.

I never thought NL looked as if she took drugs. Not skinny enough.

Not shouting, just emhasising the word.

Does he not live in the household then? Not eat there? Not enjoy a clean home? Not use the bathroom products? No use any of the things the money is used for in his own home?

I would be very surprised that if NL was/is using drugs daily that he would not have been aware, or at least highly suspicious. Earlier this week he appeared to think so anyway. Apparently as of today though - no, knows nothing of it at all now!