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

[Bradsplit]

In the trial prosecution evidence. Aha.

Oh I think Nigella will be just fine.

She is rid of her 'brilliant but brutal' husband and clearly on top form.

She took drugs when her first husband was dying and when her second husband was subjecting her to abuse. America will forgive her . In fact, I think they'll love her all the more.

If I didn't know better I would think all the 'brilliant but brutal' and 'I didn't have a problem with drugs I had a problem with life' soundbites came from the pen of Saatchi himself

TBH Nigella has always made it very clear that her life is far from perfect and that much of her cooking/fairy lights/cup cakes routine is an attemopt to bring some joy and happiness.

She had an abusive mother and a father who leaned on her when his marriage imploded. A step father who taunted her.

Her mother, sister and first husband then all died of cancer. She has spoken of how very traumatic the prolonged and public death of John Diamond was.

When CS dumped his first wife for her, he seemed like the answer to all her prayers, but what seems like a forceful personality of the honeymoon period, often degenerates to bullying and unreasonableness. She has been unhappy with him for some time (and tried to leave him last year).

I hope this is the start of a new chapter for Nigella.

I had read the work of John Diamond in the papers or was it the sunday times magazine when he had cancer. This was very tragic and I thought Nigella had found an easy and wealthy life with CS. I didn't know on her past as you explain Word Factory. I just saw wealth and easy times. I now have read different. I hope that she'll help women in abusive relationships to spread some help to others. I hope that she will be able to be happy and helping others is always a good place to start. I wish her well

I hope Trinny sees how he seems to target vulnerable women.

Perhaps Trinny thinks she can change him? Big mistake.

Perhaps she thinks it will up her profile? Quite probably yes, but a dangerous game in more ways than 1.

Perhaps her contact book has become larger.So access to more possible funding for future projects. And access to more people that can help her in her career. Almost definitely.

Perhaps she does actually like him . Well most people do have a partly good side.

Perhaps she is a bad judge of character? Almost definitely.

I think CS can be very interesting. He's a polymath/polyglot with strong opinions on many things.

And perhaps his need to control can seem very tempting when you're at a low ebb and need someone to take over the reigns and just care for you...

But controlling people are rarely pleasant in the long run.

Some women like to be "looked after". And can mistake being looked after, for being controlled. Or it can sometimes go from being one to being the other.

"Ms Arden suggested to Nigella that as the "woman of the house", she would have been involved in Francesca's housekeeping duties.'

From the Mirror coverage.
Really? Is it 1950 somewhere out there?

Marking my place but have to say I agree with noddy and wordholder.

Gosh, that's rather sexist for 2013.

Claig, I agree with your assessment of NL's testimony. Excellent.

Noddyholder, I think you don't really understand what NL meant when she said CS was a 'brutal' man, and the implications for the likelihood of sorting out the relationship or moving on with their lives quietly and civilly and behind closed doors.

As far as I can see, NL has been very reticent since the incident at the restaurant, whereas CS declared through the media and not directly to NL that he intended to divorce her, and has badmouthed her all over the papers, and his homeboys have done so too. Only in court, where NL is effectively on trial though it is the Grillo sisters who are charged with a crime, and where, as the BBC article emphasised, she has no way of refuting libel against her, has she spoken out.

To those who think NL may have been attracted to CS because he was controlling -- rarely would the target of a person like CS be allowed to see the real personality they were dealing with while he was trying to seal the deal with her. Only afterwards would the reality gradually make itself apparent, and even still, the brilliance would still be capable of blinding occasionally.

Another good day in court Nigella - brave, well focussed and articulate.

I also think Nigella will be fine.

I dont think she will be fine in her public life.
And I dont think she will be fine in private either.
It is hurt on top of all the hurt she has already had in her life.

She looks to me like she is sort of strutting and bravefacing it.
But I should imagine that she is quite a private person and must be hating all of this.

Poor Nigella. I hope that she is loking after herself.

In the flesh, CS is much more attractive than he appears in photographs and he's very, very charismatic. I can entirely see how she fell for him.

Trinny has no excuse - she knows what he's like

Well that's relief, OddFodd, because in photos he looks like a squid's innards that have been left out in the sun for a while.

I can imagine he has got something about him. I don't think she would've fell for him otherwise.

And Nigella was at her very lowest ebb when she met CS. Very easy to cling to what must have been like a life jacket.

Angela. Believe me, I was entirely with you - could never understand what she saw in him. In person, I saw him first and thought 'blimey, he's gorgeous' and only realised who he was when I saw NL. Did not recognise him at all from photos

Nigella is dignified and comes across as honest and with integrity. She looks like she's had a nose job and her lips done (sorry to digress). Does anyone else think the prosecution barrister mrs Arden has come across terribly inept with her ridiculous presumptions and statements regarding what CS likes to eat at breakfast.

Nigella owned her ass.

This piece by Sali Hughes is brilliant:

www.salihughesbeauty.com/columns/rules-good-courtface/

I believe that CS is a bullying abuser but don't believe she only took coke twice but tbh not sure it's relevant to the case and don't think she should have had to disclose it

Poor Nigella? She's admitted taking class A drugs - drug money that is statistically likely to fund other serious crime.

For the average Joe, possessing cocaine has a sentence of up to seven years in prison and/or a hefty fine. Would it be OK for her to take cocaine if she was wearing a tracksuit and claiming benefits? Taking drugs is a serious matter for everybody - I don't see why she should get a free pass because she is middle/upper class.

Additionally, she may have had drugs in the house that her daughter could access? How is that good parenting?

Also, some misguided remarks on how she doesn't look like a drug user. Drug users don't have to look like the someone out Trainspotting.

CS and NL seem as bad as each other.

So she's finished her evidence. I feel the drugs allegations have got so ridiculous from the sisters that anyone of sense is going to believe NL. If CS has really been briefing the press suggesting NL is an addict then that will simply confirm most people's views of him and perhaps do him more harm than it will do NL. She is well rid of him.

Mind you I really don't think she should have tried these drugs. Her husband was dying of throat cancer. In that case you avoid all smoking whether cannabis or otherwise and you don't take up with a chain smoker like CS as it's such a bad example to your children to live with a man who is always smoking. Also it's physically repulsive and smelly.

I found it quite shocking that the defence barrister accused NL of using the trial as a damage limitation exercise. As if she had any choice about testifying.