CRIME > Grace Jones on flat trash rap

Long before Naomi Campbell had even considered deploying a PDA as a weapon with which to thrash her staff, model-turned-singer Grace Jones was showing wannabe "don't-you-know-who-I-ams?" exactly how it's done when she famously piled into chat show host Russell Harty.

For the record, Jones required no hi-tech weaponry with which to administer the hapless Harty a righteous ear-bashing, and as far as we are aware no mobile phones or BlackBerrys were harmed during the unfolding of her latest alleged escapade, viz: inflicting over £10k's damage to a rented flat and then fleeing the scene leaving the landlords substantially out of pocket.

According to The Evening Standard, Jones has been slapped (well, almost, because she's sort of gone awol) with a writ for £16,737.26 for damage to a £1.5m flat in Chelsea Crescent - "part of the prestigious Chelsea Harbour development", as the paper explains.

Ms Jones, 58, took up residence in the flat in November 2003 at a rent of about £40k per annum. When she moved out, owners John and Rosalind Preston say she owed £5,600 rent and had caused damage totalling more than £10,000. The latter rather splendidly included cutlery abuse - including 168 quids' worth of spoons which "had been blackened" on the underside, "apparently on account of having been held in a flame", according to The Standard.

The rest of the writ is made up of £1,762 in legal fees and £118.50 for a change of locks because Jones made off with the keys. To date, it has not been served because the plaintiffs have "failed to track down the singer". Her agent Michael Schweiger, cornered by The Evening Standard in New York, declared: "It sounds like rubbish to me. She would have mentioned it to me.

"I have never heard of any problems with that flat. She would not have left it in a mess...as far as I know she left there in good standing."

Further quizzed about the mystery blackened spoons, Schweiger said: "That all sounds a little bit weird, that sounds a bit strange to me. If a spoon was dirty you would just put it in a dishwasher."

Grace Jones is currently engaged to Viscount Wimborne. Wimbourne inherited £30m back in 1993, enough to keep even the most demanding diva in spoons for a lifetime.