British contemporary art collector and ad guru Charles Saatchi was issued a caution for assault by Scotland Yard over a physical altercation with his wife Nigella Lawson, the celebrity television chef, outside a London restaurant.
Media-shy Saatchi, 70, who is famous in Britain for having an incredible eye for modern art, was called in for questioning by the police on Monday after the Sunday People published photographs which showed the Iraq-born co-founder the ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi grasping her neck with his hands as they sat at a table outside a central London restaurant.
The Met police said that Saatchi, who was not named, had voluntarily attended a police station for questioning, which lasted over four hours, and had accepted a caution for assault.
“Officers from the community safety unit at Westminster were aware of the Sunday People article which was published on Sunday 16 June and carried out an investigation. This afternoon, Monday 17 June, a 70-year-old man voluntarily attended a central London police station and accepted a caution for assault,” the Met police said on Monday night.
Saatchi, who had earlier dismissed the altercation as a “playful tiff,” told the Evening Standard, for which he is a columnist, he had decided to accept the police caution to stop the altercation “hanging over” them.
“Although Nigella made no complaint I volunteered to go to Charing Cross 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,” Saatchi said.
However, Lawson, who also writes best-selling cookbooks, has made no comment although she is not living at family home at present.
Saatchi married Lawson in 2003 and they live with her children from her marriage with journalist John Diamond, who died of cancer, and his daughter from an earlier marriage. Saatchi was married earlier to Doris Lockhart and Kay Saatchi.
Saatchi had said earlier that he was not being violent, but he was holding his 53-year-old wife by the neck “to emphasise my point” as they discussed their children.
“About a week ago, we were sitting outside a restaurant having an intense debate about the children, and 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.”
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