Sport and Comment from the Guardian

Online, July 18, 2013 (Newswire.com) - Charles Saatchi was on Monday cautioned for assault after a police investigation was sparked by the emergence of pictures showing him repeatedly grabbing his wife by the throat in a restaurant.
Sport and Comment from the Guardian
The multimillionaire art collector had sought to downplay the images showing him grabbing Nigella Lawson around the neck, claiming that he was "attempting to emphasise my point".

However, the Metropolitan police said last night that a 70-year-old man voluntarily attended a central London police station in the afternoon and accepted a caution for assault after an investigation by the community support unit at Westminster.

A spokesman said police were aware of an article published at the weekend in the Sunday People, which included several pictures showing Saatchi with his hand around Lawson's neck as they sat outside Scott's restaurant in Mayfair.

On one occasion, he raised a second hand towards her throat and on another pinched or grabbed her nose. She appeared upset and left the restaurant in tears.

Saatchi said the pictures showed a "playful tiff". He told the London Evening Standard - for which he is a columnist - that the pictures gave a "more drastic and violent impression" of the incident than had been the case. "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," he said. "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."

He said the pair had reconciled by the time they got home. "We had made up by the time we were home. The paparazzi were congregated outside our house after the story broke yesterday morning, so I told Nigella to take the kids off till the dust settled."

Asked to comment on reports that Lawson had moved out of the family home, her spokesman said: "I can clarify that she has left the family home with her children." Lawson has made no comment since the pictures emerged.

A witness described the incident as shocking. "I have no doubt she was scared," the onlooker told the Sunday People. "It was horrific, really. She was very tearful and was constantly dabbing her eyes. Nigella was very, very upset."

Lawson has previously described her husband as "an exploder". In 2007 she said: "I'll go quiet when he explodes, and then I am a nest of horrible festeringness."

The pair were sitting outside Scott's when the pictures were taken. Witnesses told the Sunday People that Lawson attempted to placate her husband, putting her hand on his wrist and at one point leaning over to kiss his cheek. The witness said: "She raised her voice and got angry but at the same time was trying to calm him down, almost like you would try to calm down a child. The kiss was a strange thing. He was being intimidating, threatening."

Heather Harvey, from Eaves, a charity that supports victims of domestic violence, said some of the language being used was shocking. "This is not a 'row', it is not a 'tiff', it is an incidence of domestic violence. There is an unfortunate myth that domestic violence only happens to a certain type of person, that it happens in dysfunctional families where people have been drinking. But it happens in every social class, and in every profession."

She added: "It is shocking that this happened in a public place, and yet no one intervened. This is not acceptable behaviour."

Last year Saatchi, co-founder of the Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency, who has an estimated fortune of £100m, was pictured pressing his hand over his wife's mouth as they dined at Scott's.

A spokesperson for Scott's said: "The staff at Scott's are aware of the allegations in the media today but did not see anything untoward happen within the restaurant. As this is now a police matter we cannot comment further." Last night Nick Griffin, leader of the British National party, was criticised for comments he made on Twitter about Lawson.