The confined confines of London’s high court receive Hollywood treatment this week when it considers defamation and listens to evidence from leading movie stars.
Johnny Depp’s claim against him Sun on charges that he was violent towards his ex-wife, Amber Heard, 34, allegations that he vehemently denies, he has been in gestation for more than two years.
But you could see it downgraded from Hollywood’s A list overnight.
The 57-year-old actor is suing the Sun editor, News Group Newspapers (NGN), and its executive editor, Dan Wootton, about a 2018 article that referred to the star as a “beating wife.” In an article titled: “Gone Potty – How Can JK Rowling Be ‘Genuinely Happy’ by Hitting Cast Wife Johnny Depp in the New Fantastic beasts Movie? “Wootton asked why the author was happy that the actor appeared in the latest film in the Harry Potter franchise.
That the case, which was due to start in March but was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, has reached the superior court is unusual. Most defamation cases are settled for pragmatic reasons.
“The costs each side will incur tend to be quite significant,” said Emily Cox, a partner in the media disputes division at the Stewarts law firm, who suggested that both sides could end up “quite easily” spending £ 1 million each fighting in her corner.
She added: “The loser pays the winner’s costs in this jurisdiction, but you don’t tend to recoup all of your costs. The best reasonable case is that you would recoup 70% of your costs. “
Cox said it was difficult to see that the damages awarded to Depp, if his claim was successful, exceeded the £ 185,000 that the BBC paid Lord McAlpine after a Newsnight The broadcast led to him being wrongly implicated in child abuse. But Depp, who intends to travel from his home in France to London to give evidence, may have felt he had no choice but to take action. The allegations threaten to curtail a heartbreaking career.
“You don’t want to stay on the record as someone who committed domestic violence,” Cox said. “In a #MeToo world, there is much less tolerance for that type of complaint.”
Tactically the Sun The trial is the first battle in a longer war. Depp is suing Heard in the United States for $ 50 million in damages for a column he wrote in the Washington Post in which she described herself as a victim of “domestic abuse”. Although Depp was not named in the column, she claims they defamed her.
In the legal documents submitted by Heard in response, the Aquaman Star claimed that Depp regularly beat her before marrying him in 2015 and that this continued during their 18-month marriage. Depp, who denies the claims, in turn accused Heard of attacking him. Therefore, the case of the United Kingdom can have an important influence on the action of the United States. “If you get a strongly worded judgment in this jurisdiction, that will go a long way in clearing your name,” said Cox.
With the reputation at stake, the legal skirmishes that were fought before the case was heard suggest that the skeleton armies will be pulled out of the closets. NGN lawyers accused Depp of being in “serious” violation of a court order because he had not provided key texts between himself and an assistant. Lawyers said the messages, sent in Australia in February and early March 2015, shortly before what Heard claims was “a three-day test of physical assault,” showed that Depp was trying to obtain drugs.
The alleged incident in Australia is one of 14 separate domestic violence allegations that NGN intends to rely on in its defense.
Judge Justice Nicol rejected a request by Depp’s attorneys for Heard to reveal evidence, including an audio recording of a conversation between her and her ex-husband. The attorneys had also requested “all communications” between Heard and a contact saved on her phone as “Rocketman,” who Depp claims is the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, and between Heard and actor James Franco.
But in rejecting the request, Nicol said: “The central issue for the defense of the truth is whether Mr. Depp attacked Ms. Heard.”
Depp will reportedly call former partners, including Vanessa Paradis and Winona Ryder, as witnesses to ensure that he was never violent towards them.
Both Depp and Heard, who are believed to have already traveled to the UK from California, are expected to spend two to three days being questioned at the witness box. Fighting on Depp’s behalf is a lawyer and lobbyist, Adam Waldman, who was instrumental in the star’s recent decisions to sue his former attorney and management agency.
A source who knows Waldman told the Observer that he was “a pit bull” who was “very well connected”. Waldman is known to have lobbied for oligarch Oleg Deripaska and visited WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange nine times at the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2017.
“He is the puppet master in all of this,” the source said. “It is very litigious and very hard.”
Last week, Waldman turned to Twitter to reprimand Hollywood reporters who were investigating his relationship with Depp. It also published Nicol’s decision that the trial should proceed 40 minutes before it was officially published.
In his Twitter feed, Waldman posts claims about his client that are later refuted or not materialized under the words “in memoriam.” Expect the two words to appear heavily in Waldman’s Twitter feed if Depp wins.
But if you lose, they can provide an epitaph.
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