Nigella Lawson has taken another potential blow to her reputation since her former aide Elisabetta Grillo has now claimed in court that the television cook not only allowed her children, Cosima and Thomas, to smoke when they were underage, but also let them smoke cannabis too.

Nigella Lawson Arrival Court
It Has Been Claimed That Nigella Lawson Allowed Her Children To Smoke Weed.

Elisabetta and her sister Francesca stand on trial for fraud after reportedly spending £685,000 on credit cards belonging to Lawson and her former husband, Charles Saatchi. However, the Italian sisters have alleged that they were given free reign of the cards in exchange for not telling Saatchi about his wife's cocaine use.

Though Saatchi and Lawson originally denied in court any drug use, it emerged last week that Lawson, 53, had admitted to using cocaine and weed on several occasions. The latest concerning drug allegations arose when the judge as Isleworth Crown Court quizzed Elisabetta over a £70 duty free spend in New York. "It was cigarettes for the children," the 41-year-old said. "I bought them there and Nigella allowed me to buy (them).

Grillo Sisters
Elisabetta Grillo Has Said That No One Told Her She Wasn't Allowed To Spend The Money.

Grillo was then pressed by the prosecutor, Jane Carpenter, who asked "What on earth do you think you were doing buying cigarettes for underage children?" "Well, if Nigella Lawson let them smoke weed..." Elisabetta began, before Judge Robin Johnson stopped the line of questioning, according to Sky News.

Nigella admitted that she took cocaine six times with her late husband, John Diamond, when he was terminally ill with cancer because "it gave him some escape." She also said she used the class A drug again in 2010 when she felt her ex-husband Charles Saatchi was subjecting her to "intimate terrorism."

Charles Saatchi
Charles Saatchi Denied In Court That He Ever Saw His Ex-Wife Use Drugs.

Though the sisters say that they never saw Nigella taking drugs, they claim to remember seeing a packet of white powder in Lawson and Diamond's home, as well as rolled-up banknotes and credit cards with white powder on them.

Lawson and Saatchi divorced in July, not long after photos of Saatchi gripping Lawson's neck and holding her nose were published. At the time Saatchi accepted a police caution for assault though Lawson claims that "a long summer of bullying and abuse" followed. She alleges that Saatchi "told everyone" that he was taking cocaine out of her nose during the restaurant incident but in actuality it was provoked after she made a remark about a passing baby."