Nicollette Sheridan's Desperate Housewives character wasn't killed off until after her alleged altercation with the show's creator, it has been claimed.

The actress is currently in court after filing a lawsuit against Marc Cherry and television network ABC claiming unfair dismissal and assault, which they have denied. She alleges Marc hit her on the head when they disagreed about a script in September 2008.

In court this week, Marc insisted the decision to kill off Nicollette's character Edie Britt was taken earlier in the year.

However, yesterday scriptwriter Lori Kirkland Baker took to the stand. She worked on the programme from 2007 until 2009 and was part of the team who dealt with Nicollette's final scenes.

She has claimed she didn't know Edie was being written out until December 2008.

Talking about a meeting the writers held on December 3 2008, Lori said: "It started with Marc coming in quickly and asking the assistants to leave and telling staff that he had just gotten permission from [ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson] to kill off Edie Britt."

The writer added that executive producer John Pardee also stated the storyline wasn't fixed until December.

Lori also claimed she stopped working on Desperate Housewives after the fifth season Nicollette's last because she felt she hadn't been treated well by Marc.

Marc previously told the court that the decision for Nicollette's character to be axed was taken in May 2008. He also alleged it was taken due to "creative and financial reasons", according to New York Daily News.

He claimed the plan was so secret he developed a special code so he could talk to one of the writers about it without anyone else knowing.

"We knew since we were killing the character Edie, we needed a code," he said.

"I thought the time had come to kill the character. The purpose of the character was going to be over. [Edie] had already slept with three of the women's husbands. She had already caused as much damage [as she could]."

Nicollette has alleged Marc hit her hard on the head after becoming annoyed during a rehearsal. He has maintained it was a light tap which he hoped would help her understand how he wanted the scene to be played.

The actress first filed her $6 million lawsuit in 2010.