Nigella and aides put $2.4m on credit card

Nigella Lawson.

Charles Saatchi paid annual credit card bills of 1.2 million ($2.4 million) run up by his ex-wife Nigella Lawson and five aides (called Team Nigella) for "personal spending" on his family, a court was told yesterday.

He paid the bills in full by direct debit each month without scrutinising where the money was going, even though employees were sometimes spending more than 5000 on designer clothes in single transactions, it was disclosed.

One aide put the 12,500 bill for her wedding reception on Saatchi's credit card, the court heard. Others used the cards to pay for health spas, hairdressers and dental work.

Details of the extraordinary amounts of money spent by Lawson and the couple's personal assistants were exposed at the trial of two Italian sisters accused of fraudulently spending at least 685,000 on Saatchi's credit cards.

Francesca and Elisabetta Grillo are alleged to have treated themselves to a four-year "free for all" of spending without being authorised to do so. They deny fraud, and are expected to claim Lawson agreed the payments, partly in return for their silence over her alleged drug use.

Isleworth Crown Court, west London, heard that the sisters were two of five aides to Lawson and Saatchi who had credit cards linked to Saatchi's account. Between them they averaged 100,000 a month.

The sisters' monthly spending was in excess of their annual salaries, which was 28,000 for Francesca and 25,000 for Elisabetta.

They also used Saatchi's personal minicab account for 105 journeys between them in a single month.

Saatchi became suspicious about the sisters' spending in June last year when he discovered one of them ordered a taxi on his account to go to a polo match in Berkshire.

The trial continues.