Nigella Lawson is facing a police investigation into her admission of drug use.
Police are to review evidence she gave during the fraud trial of Francesca and Elisabetta Grillo, her former personal assistants, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The Grillos claimed she was a habitual drug user and took cocaine daily.
Lawson denied this but did admit taking cocaine several times, most recently in 2010, and smoking cannabis.
The Grillos were acquitted of fraud on Friday (UK time) and initially Scotland Yard said it would not investigate the evidence given.
But Commander Stephen Watson, of the Metropolitan Police, on Saturday night told The Telegraph that officers would examine the “implications” of what Lawson had said under oath and seek advice on what to do next from the Crown Prosecution Service.
Police will consider whether to bring drug possession charges and could also interview Lawson to attempt to identify her suppliers. Social services could also intervene either at the request of police or on their own initiative after claims that she used drugs in front of her children.
“We will use specialist resources from within the Metropolitan Police Service to examine all the evidence which emerged as part of a review into this matter,” Watson said.
“At some point once that review is included, presumably in conjunction with the Crown Prosecution Service, we will determine a way forward.
“Part and parcel of that review we will undertake will be to look at all aspects of the testimony that was given in the trial, which is now public knowledge, and will reveal itself in the transcripts of the trial.
“There are implications in terms of what has been said during the course of that trial and all those implications will be taken into account in determining an appropriate way forward.”
The review is likely to focus on Lawson’s evidence given on December 4.
The cook said she took cocaine on six occasions with John Diamond, her first husband, when he found out that he had terminal cancer.
“It gave him some escape,” she told the court.
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“There was another time I took cocaine.
“In July 2010 I was having a very, very difficult time.
“I felt subjected to intimate terrorism by Mr Saatchi.”
She added: “The idea that I am a drug addict or habitual user of cocaine is absolutely ridiculous.”
Lawson also admitted taking cannabis in the last year of her marriage to Saatchi.
“I have to be honest, I have smoked the odd joint,” she said.
“I found it made an intolerable situation tolerable. It’s a false friend.
“I found the answer was in changing the situation and trying to create a tolerable situation for me and my family.
“Since freeing myself from a brilliant but brutal man, I’m now totally cannabis, cocaine and drug-free.”
Despite these admissions, Lawson is probably in the clear, with several police and law experts telling the Telegraph that pursuing a case against Lawson would be very difficult.
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