The Grillo case (AKA Nigella & Saatchi)

[BerylStreep]

So the last thread on the Grillo case is full.

I have taken the liberty of starting a new one here for people's thoughts as the case unfolds.

How has Nigella been exploiting anyone. Her employees seem to have been very well paid, particularly if their additional spending was authorised.

Her dysfunctional life seems to have been the result of being married to a deeply unpleasant, abusive and controlling man. Having to read the same book as your husband so you can have the same experience is weird.

Although Geoffrey Robertson makes some good points, there are problems with what he's saying. Imagine you've got a witness for the prosecution, their evidence is challenged, and they bring in other witnesses (sub-witnesses), and experts, to bolster their evidence in effect creating a mini-trial within a main trial. To avoid unfairness, it should then be possible to challenge the sub-witness evidence, which in turn should permit more witnesses to be introduced into the trial (sub-sub-witnesses) to attack/support the sub-witness evidence. At this point, should sub-sub-witness evidence be challengeable by bringing sub-sub-sub-witness into the trial?

This would be a game played by the rich and powerful, for the simple reason that there's no way the state would pay for trials within trials of witness evidence. It also risks changing the nature of evidence. Evidence of the rich and powerful supported in this way will be evidence-plus. Normal evidence could look rather flimsy/unsuppported in comparison.

Or to put it another way, hard cases make bad law.

Read Deborah Orr - the best article I have read on this case - if you want to understand why Nigella deserves no sympathy.

Frankly she has been behaving dreadfully for years.

Geoffrey Robertson's article is interesting. Funny he's never said anything about the issue before. But hang on! He went out with Nigella "I was expected to marry her" (until he ran off with Kathy Lette that is)
The Daily Fail have started btw Interesting though. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2527397/Inside-Nigellas-toxic-marriage-She-haunted-depression-He-terrible-bully-driven-mad-jealousy-children-The-bitter-truth-Nigella-Saatchis-marital-breakdown.html

Read it. Still don't know what you're talking about.

Do you know nigella Bonsoir. Throughout this thread you've implied terrible behaviour.

Bonsoir has said elsewhere that she has no empathy.

I think they weren't convicted because there wasn't enough proof to convict, not because there was proof that the purchases were explicitly authorised. Again, love to know HMRC's view on this payment for services rendered.

I think the Deborah Orr piece is a bit of an inch filler. A lot of details about what was inside saatchi and lawson's heads.

I suspect nigella's life really became dysfunctional when over the course of a few years her husband was diagnosed with cancer, his tongue was cut out, he became very ill and died and she was widowed with 2 small children and then her next husband was an abusive control freak (albeit I am sure sometimes witty and charming).

The Sun was surprisingly kind to Nigella I thought. They didn't say they believed her evidence, but there was a pro Nigella feel about it all. Nice pictures of her and stuff about her sweeping stylishly into court etc.

If Nigella hadn't have taken drugs and been squeaky clean it wouldn't have come to this.
The Grillo sisters rightly fought and were proven innocent.

nauticant That very point was put to Geoffrey Robertson on the Today programme this morning, and he said that in countries where that system operates, it doesn't descend into the sub-sub-witness spiral.

I think Robertson makes an important point, though. It's not just that it was unfair to Nigella that she wasn't allowed to answer the allegations, it undermined the fairness of the trial. The Grillo Sisters' allegations about e.g. her taking drugs with her children were unchallenged and allowed to stand. How was the jury supposed to work out whether they were true or not when no-one else was called either to corroborate or challenge their version?

And you can't blame Saatchi,she admitted taking drugs before getting together with a married man.

I heard that too hackmum and assumed he was referring to countries having inquisitorial legal systems. When you're talking about adversarial legal systems, the likelihood of the proceedings expanding uncontrollably is far greater.

Can't blame saatchi for what? Leaving his second wife?Grabbing her around the throat?

I suspect the thing that saved the grillo's was not so much the jury's belief in their innocence as their unwillingness to send them to prison based on the evidence.

So many failures to understand the issue...

Expand please Bonsoir...

I think it's more accurate to say that if nigella had either never met saatchi or had been prepared to be a good girl and obey him it would never have come to this.

That's very patronising Bonsoir. Please enlighten us

Good article by Geoffrey Robinson. If Nigella's celeb status does draw attention to unfair treatment of witnesses, that is surely A Good Thing for every other witness in the same sort of circs re. bad character?

Yaz, the Grillos were found Not Guilty. The jury decided there wasn't sufficient evidence to convict them. You don't get a declaration of innocence in English criminal law. They are 'innocent' in terms of not being convicted of a crime.

Saatchi's PR people have been sending bizarre muck-raking (and highly libellous) emails to journalists for months, containing the same lurid allegations about Nigella as the Grillos came out with. Presumably an attempt to prepare journalists to report all the shit as soon as it was mentioned in court.

How strange that the Grillos used all the same shit that Saatchi's 'mates' have been spreading.

The DM is serving Saatchi well today, salivating over the case is its usul repulsively salacioussnd hipocritical manner. BBC newspaper review said it has numerous pages of coverage, including Bel Mooney agony aunting over 'the poor children'. Tabloid fodder, as CS must have expected. Vile.

I hate Bel Mooney.

Her real name's Beryl. I like to tell people that because she keeps it a bit quiet.

Beryl Thanks for that, Limited. Even funnier than AA Gill being Adrian.

team Nigella

Nothing more to say. She was ripped off by people she trusted and she lived in an abusive relationship with a man with more money than anyone can imagine. I personally do not think that one spliff makes a drug addict. She confessed publicly and humiliatingly to drug use. She really could not have done more.

I hope those Grillos do get found guilty in the civil case. They are not very nice people.

For those who keep referring others Grillos as innocent, as has been pointed out before, there is no finding of 'innocent', it is 'not guilty'. Unlike in Scotland, English law does not include a verdict of 'not proven', which allows an indication of insufficient evidence etc. to prove guilt
or lack of guilt. Someone with knowledge of our legal system and its history my be able to explain why a finding of innocence does not exist.

Saatchi's smear campaign from the Telegraph

God, that's grim reading edam.