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Depp’s lawyers oppose ‘substantial injustice’
Andrew Caldecott QC, representing Mr. Depp, said that the trial judge, Judge Nicol, had a “very favorable starting point from Ms. Heard” and unfairly rejected the “adverse evidence” for her.
He told the court: “If you look at the sentence, material of a similar type against Mr. Depp is acted out over and over again.”
But, Caldecott said, the adverse evidence was not given equal weight to Ms. Heard.
The attorney said, “The judge had a very favorable starting point from Ms. Heard and was really not particularly interested in this adverse evidence.”
He added that “the disparity in approach of the evidence by Ms. Heard and Mr. Depp” caused Mr. Depp “a substantial injustice.”
Amber Heard performed ‘volte face’ days before trial
Johnny Depp’s legal team says Amber Heard did a “flip face” in the days leading up to last summer’s defamation trial by claiming that her ex-husband had assaulted her multiple times in March 2013, rather than just the time she had originally alleged.
She alleged that he slapped her three times after she made a joke about one of his tattoos. Andrew Caldecott QC, for Mr. Depp, noted Ms. Heard’s initial claim that the March 2013 incident was a watershed moment, saying: “This incident was unlike anything I had experienced with (Mr. Depp) until then, I didn’t realize it was a sign of what was to come. “
Caldecott said Heard had been inconsistent with the date of the incident, initially claiming it had occurred on March 8 and later claiming it had been March 23 and that there had been multiple incidents of violence over the course of that month.
In his ruling, the trial judge accepted that Mr. Depp “inflicted a series of assaults on (Ms. Heard), only one has been alleged, but I accept that this is why Ms. Heard’s account is confused”.
Caldecott said: “This ignores the fact that it was his claim that it was the first time anything of this seriousness had happened.”
He said the judge had “lightly” accepted Ms. Heard’s evidence without a “proper forensic examination” of its veracity.
‘The judge found that, on multiple occasions, Mr. Depp had lied’
Sasha Wass QC, on behalf of The Sun’s News Group Newspapers (NGN), said Depp’s complaint was that the trial judge was “favorable” to Heard’s evidence but “unfavorable” to the actor’s.
Ms. Wass said: “The obvious inference to be drawn from that state of affairs is that the judge found Ms. Heard to be a convincing witness on the one hand and Mr. Depp a witness lacking credibility on the other. “.
She added: “It is suggested … that the judge did not explain his reasons.” We say this is wrong. Also, the suggestion that no witnesses are found to have lied … the judge found that, on multiple occasions, Mr. Depp had lied. “He said the judge” did not use the word, “but repeatedly said he did not. did – accept Mr. Depp’s evidence.
Ms Wass told the court: “Our general presentation in terms of criticism of the sentence is that it is wrong. Each of the 14 complaints of violence was the subject of forensic analysis.”
Judge has ‘right’ to dismiss private ‘disputes’
Sasha Wass QC, representing The Sun’s News Group Newspapers (NGN), said the trial judge had the right to reject the couple’s private recordings.
He said the recordings were “discussions between two people who were in the final stages of a relationship and the judge had the right to say that he was not prepared to give what was said on the tapes the same weight that he gave a witness. who goes to court, swears to tell the truth and undergoes an analysis, that is, a cross-examination of what they have affirmed.
Ms. Wass continued: “The judge had every right to have seen the evidence, to have listened to the witness, to have seen how they faced cross-examination, or not, to say that he preferred that evidence to this evidence.”
She added: “The position if the judge had found – because Mr. Depp’s case was that ‘she hit me more than once’ – she was a fighter and had slapped Mr. Depp as she admitted on that tape, that was not her. disqualifies to be a victim of serious domestic violence.
“So whatever criticism is made of him (on the tapes) it doesn’t really matter.”
The gold digger claims
In November, Judge Nicol rejected Depp’s claim that Heard was a “gold digger” and said in his ruling: “Your donation of the seven million US dollars to charity is not the act one would expect of a gold digger.”
Caldecott argued that if “the truth about the charity claim emerged at trial, it would have materially affected Judge Nicol’s consideration of Ms. Heard’s evidence as a whole.”
He said: “The evidence presented a totally exceptional act of philanthropy, which would have deeply impressed any reasonable person.”
“His public statements expressly stated that the ACLU donation specifically had victims of domestic violence in mind.
“The subliminal message of the charity claim was in any case clear: Ms. Heard would not want to keep Mr. Depp’s money, because he had subjected her to serious violence.
“The evidence was presented, and obviously intended to present it in the strongest terms as virtuous and victim.”
Caldecott said Depp “had his suspicions about Ms. Heard’s evidence” at the time of the trial, “but he had no evidence to back it up.”
The attorney added: “Ms. Heard took all available steps to suppress the evidence.”
Adam Wolanski QC, representing the Sun’s News Group Newspapers (NGN), said in written communications that Depp’s “new evidence” was said to support “the theory that Heard was a” gold digger. “
But, he said, “the evidence is not ‘fresh’ at all, as it could have been obtained with reasonable diligence for (the) trial.”
Wolanski added: “The ‘new’ evidence, which respondents accept is apparently credible insofar as it shows that Ms Heard has not yet finished making her promised payments to charities, only addresses a highly peripheral matter. and not alleged and not relevant to the alleged issues, that is, the 14 assaults, that Judge Nicol had to decide.
“The evidence would have had no impact on Ms. Heard’s credibility if she had been before the trial judge, as it does not show that Ms. Heard or any of the defendants’ witnesses lied.”
She told the court: “Therefore, the request to admit the evidence must be rejected … (and) the request for permission to appeal must be dismissed.”
Johnny Depp against the sun
Depp sued NGN in June 2018 over the newspaper’s executive editor Dan Wootton’s column, which referred to “overwhelming evidence” that he attacked Ms. Heard.
In his sentence, Judge Nicol concluded that 12 of the 14 alleged incidents of domestic violence on which NGN relied in its defense of the actor’s claim did occur.
The judge also found that Depp made Heard “fear for his life” on three occasions, including one that the actress described as a “three-day hostage situation” in Australia in March 2015.
But Depp’s legal team says Judge Nicol “did not examine the competing accounts of each incident, nor did he explain whether he found them proven and, if so, on what basis.”
They also argue that “the judge should have looked at the extent to which Ms. Heard’s evidence undermined her credibility in relation to her assault / bodily injury allegations.”
Just days after the November ruling, Depp announced that Warner Brothers had asked him to step down from his role in the Harry Potter spinoff franchise Fantastic Beasts, the role that prompted Wootton to ask how JK Rowling could be “genuinely happy.” Mr. Depp was cast in the movie.
Depp is currently embroiled in a separate defamation battle in the US, having personally sued Ms. Heard over a 2018 Washington Post op-ed in which he claimed to be a victim of domestic abuse, but did not mention the actor by name.
The actor’s $ 50 million (£ 35 million) US case against Ms Heard was recently delayed to April 2022.
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