UK court rules against Johnny Depp in libel action

Britain’s Supreme Court ruled against Johnny Depp in his libel suit against the owner of the tabloid Sun on charges that he was a “wife beater.”

In a ruling Monday, Judge Andrew Nicol said Depp “has been unsuccessful in his defamation action.”

Although Nicol said that Depp had “proven the necessary elements of his defamation cause of action,” the defendants had shown that “what they posted in the meaning that I have argued the words had was substantially true.”

Depp sued News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun, and the newspaper’s executive editor, Kiwi Dan Wootton, over an April 2018 article that accused him of assaulting his wife Amber Heard.

Wootton was born in Wellington. The 37-year-old joined the Sun in 2013.

Elaine Charlson Bredehoft, Heard’s US attorney, said in a statement that the verdict “is not a surprise” to those who followed the trial in the summer.

“Very soon we will present even more voluminous evidence in the United States,” he said.
Depp is also suing Heard for $ 50 million in Virginia over a Washington Post story on domestic violence. The trial will be held next year.

Both Depp and Heard spent several days on the witness stand during the three-week trial in July, giving irreconcilable accounts of their volatile relationship. The couple met on the set of the 2011 comedy “The Rum Diary” and married in Los Angeles in 2015. They separated the following year and divorced in 2017.

The 34-year-old Heard testified as the main defense witness and said Depp became a violent alter ego dubbed the “Monster” when under the influence of alcohol and drugs. She alleged 14 separate incidents between 2013 and 2016 in which he hit, slapped and pushed her, pulled her hair and threw bottles at her. The alleged assaults took place in glamorous settings, including the couple’s luxurious penthouse, Depp’s private island in the Bahamas, and an executive jet.

Depp, 57, called the allegations “sick” and “cheating” and claimed that Heard was the assailant during their relationship. He claimed that Heard struck him, even cutting off the tip of his finger with a bottle of vodka thrown during an altercation in Australia while filming a “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie.

Depp acknowledged the heavy drug use, saying he took marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy and magic mushrooms, and became addicted to opioid painkillers. But he denied that the drugs made him violent.

“I’m certainly not a violent person, especially with women,” he said.

Heard insisted that he was telling the truth and said he had spoken reluctantly.

“What woman has ever benefited from being a victim of domestic violence?” he asked in court.

Depp’s attorney, David Sherborne, accused Heard of wrongly donning the mantle of the #MeToo movement, calling her “a totally unreliable witness and, frankly, a compulsive liar.”

Both parties offered testimony from friends and former employees to support their version of events, and the judge must decide which account is more credible.

The decision is a huge personal and financial blow for Depp.

“Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s reputations are irrevocably tarnished,” said Mark Stephens, a media attorney at the Howard Kennedy law firm, before the verdict.

“I think it will persist, because whoever wins in this case, the way this case was presented, the problems that arose, particularly around the presentation of the case with a gender perspective, I think that will be studied in the next years . “

– Associated Press