Marital mess: Nigella Lawson, today’s face of domestic violence

Too hot for the kitchen

If Nigella Lawson manages to rescue her marriage, it won’t be because of the sympathy and understanding of women commentators. They probably want her to dump her multimillionaire husband Charles Saatchi, who was photographed, frame by frame, apparently squeezing her throat.

After initially claiming that the pictures made their row at a restaurant in London look much worse than it was, Saatchi accepted a police caution for assault.

In The Guardian, one woman journalist could not resist a play on the word “domestic”.

In the past few weeks, Nigella had “gone from domestic goddess to the face of domestic violence”.

This was a typical comment: “The photographs of Charles Saatchi grabbing his wife by the throat are so shocking because they remind us that Lawson’s life isn’t as picture-perfect as it looks on screen.”

“In 2000 Nigella Lawson published the book that was so successful its title became both her nickname and the byword for her career: How To Be a Domestic Goddess,” the piece read.

There was almost the sense that Nigella was now paying the price for being too successful — “it’s hard to think of a sadder and more brutal undoing of such a high-profile image than what has happened to Lawson”.

Nigella (once my colleague at The Sunday Times) is 53, her husband 70. In deciding whether to end the marriage, it may come down in the end to a question of money: “It is believed she has an overall personal worth of £15million. And together with her husband Charles, she shares a fortune of £110million. The couple have until recently shared a £12million, seven-bedroom house in Chelsea, west London.”

In an interview last year, Nigella “revealed that she was physically abused by her mother when she was a child”.

The problem with being such a high-profile personality is that women’s groups want Nigella to set an example, not by making up with her husband, but taking a stand against domestic violence — by leaving Saatchi.

“It was a clear case of domestic violence,” declared Holly Dustin, director of the End Violence Against Women coalition.

As it is, she has moved out of her marital home. Lawson married Saatchi, who made his name in advertising, in 2003. She has two children, Cosima and Bruno, from her marriage to journalist John Diamond, who died of throat cancer in 2001.

“It is not known if she has separated from Saatchi permanently,” the Mail speculated unhelpfully, “but crucially she was seen without her gold wedding band on. Miss Lawson is said to be facing increased pressure from managers to protect her brand through whatever decision she takes over her marriage.”

Brand?

Courting trouble: Jeremy Forrest (top) and Megan Stammers

Lolita’s liaison

Megan Stammers is not the first schoolgirl to develop a crush on her male teacher. But the modern day Lolita still thinks she did nothing wrong in developing an intense sexual relationship with her teacher, Jeremy Forrest, who ran off with his pupil to France.

After an eight-day search, 30-year-old Forrest and Megan, a girl half his age, were brought back to Britain. Now, after being convicted of “child abduction” and the prospect of a jail sentence, Forrest’s career is over.

As he was found guilty at Lewes Crown Court last week, he turned to Megan and said: “I love you.”

Megan sobbed and said: “I am sorry.”

The girl went off willingly with the teacher but the courts chose not to treat this as a modern day Romeo and Juliet tale. The jury heard how the relationship between Forrest, a newly married man, and Megan developed at Bishop Bell Church of England School in Eastbourne, East Sussex.

Their affair became an open secret. Forrest would pick the girl up in her school uniform and would have sex with her in his car, in hotels and at his marital home. She told a friend that they had sex up to eight times a night. They exchanged explicit phone messages and pictures.

Ronald Jaffa, defending, said the girl was “desperate and suicidal” and Forrest had gone with her to France to prevent her coming to harm.

Burt Richard Barton, prosecuting, said Forrest’s actions were an abuse of trust and that he could be labelled a “paedophile” who had groomed the vulnerable teenager.

He told the jury: “It is about his desires to have that young sexual flesh, to satisfy his own carnal lusts. There is a word for it, it’s called grooming.”

What will happen when Forrest comes out of prison? And what is the future for Megan?

Such affairs must have been common when Jimmy Savile was a successful presenter on BBC television.

Fatal attraction: Charlotte Smith

Goa romance

This is the other syndrome: older woman gets carried away by younger man — which is what happened to Charlotte Smith.

On holiday in Goa in 2008 the Englishwoman met one Devendra Singh and, being trusting, got taken in by him. At 37, she was perhaps looking for love and sex and was flattered by the attentions of a man of 28. They married in Goa in December 2010.

To fast forward the story, she got him a visa and brought him to England. He was not capable of any work but she and her father set Devendra up in business. That, too, failed and he took to drink. When Charlotte finally decided to end the marriage, he picked up a heavy ornamental elephant and battered her to death, Stafford Crown Court learnt last week.

Charlotte’s body was discovered lying on the living room floor of her home in Leek, Staffordshire, by her father. Devendra admits the killing but not murder, claiming he suffered a “loss of control”.

Maybe romances started in Goa should carry a statutory warning. Anyway, Devendra faces the prospect of a life sentence.

Ray season

The British Film Institute (BFI) is planning a Ray season. Heavy Twitter traffic carries useful intelligence: “Satyajit Ray season upcoming @BFI Southbank this summer if you can hop over to London.”

It’s true.

On August 16, there will be a screening of a newly restored print of Mahanagar, the BFI confirms. “This richly absorbing tale of family and city life from the master of Bengali cinema is set in mid-50s Calcutta, a society still adjusting to Independence and gripped by social and financial crisis. The film’s nationwide release will coincide with a two-month complete retrospective of the director’s work at BFI Southbank during August and September.”

Indian summer

Sharmila Tagore is in London so she can do her bit to promote the Ray season. But I know she herself likes “gritty” modern films, of the type that don’t get passed by censors in India. Personally I would rope in film critic Derek Malcolm as well.

Tittle tattle

One of the biggest mysteries in London is what happened to Emaan Shah, the 17-year-old Indian girl who has been tracked down in Scotland. She went missing from Oxford Street on June 10 while shopping with her parents.

It so happens I rang Scotland Yard hours before it was announced she had been found — and police would not tell me a thing. Was she really “kidnapped”?