Johnny Depp Wants A Retrial Of His “Wife Beater” Case Against The Sun
From the files of Beating a Dead Horse, the operative word being beating, everyone’s favorite swashbuckling, bed-poop finding, cologne-peddling wine connoisseur, Johnny Depp, is doing everything in his dubious and pungently fermented arsenal of powers to ensure his ravaged name appears before the public, even if it’s not on a big screen in the form of rolling credits. At this point, we’ll all be reading about this sad, protracted spousal-abuse wreckage in the afterlife, when his scarf-swathed ghost douses itself in deadstock Sauvage and shakes its borrowed, alien-gloved fist at the sky, cursing ex-wife Amber Heard’s name and rage-haunting whomever might still be wandering among the living. According to The Guardian, Johnny and his trusty briefcase of WTF decisions aren’t quite through yet.
Last month, the high court in London ruled against Johnny Depp in his libel case against The Sun for calling him a “wife beater.” The high court ruled that there was enough evidence that proves Johnny is indeed a “wife beater.” Johnny’s lawyers are now fighting that decision and stated to UK’s Court of Appeal that he did not get a fair trial. via The Guardian:
Johnny Depp “did not receive a fair trial” and the high court ruling that stated he assaulted his ex-wife Amber Heard and put her in fear for her life is “plainly wrong”, lawyers for the Hollywood star have told the court of appeal.
The 57-year-old sued the Sun over a column by its executive editor, Dan Wootton, which referred to “overwhelming evidence” that he had attacked Heard, 34, during their relationship and described him as a “wife beater”.
In the initial ruling, last month, Mr Justice Nicol dismissed Depp’s claim, saying the paper’s owner, News Group Newspapers, had proved what was in the article to be “substantially true”.
Dismissing Depp’s libel case, Nicol found that 12 of the 14 alleged incidents of domestic violence relied on by NGN did occur. The judge said Depp put Heard “in fear of her life” during what she described as a “three-day hostage situation” in Australia in March 2015.
Earlier this month, The Hollywood Reporter called Johnny “radioactive” and suggested that his vindictiveness in this matter was a factor in the downward spiral of his career. This, on top of a grim, less-than-flattering 2018 piece in Rolling Stone, has turbo-soured him to media in general, but he can’t exactly escape its necessary-evil status to put him out there for good or ill. Bulking up this endless shit sandwich is the audio of Amber admitting that she, too, had gotten physical with Johnny. But this case is about allegations against Johnny, not Amber, and he and his legal team, including lawyer David Sherborne, are coming out swinging for another round in order to attempt to clear his name:
Depp’s legal team claim Nicol “failed to undertake any, or an adequate analysis, of Ms Heard’s shifting account, despite the importance of consistency as a consideration of a witness’s testimony”.
Sherborne said Nicol “concluded that the appellant was guilty of serious physical assaults without taking account of or even acknowledging that Ms Heard had been untruthful in her evidence, without testing her account against the documentary evidence and the evidence of other witnesses, and without making any findings that he disbelieved those witnesses”.
Sherborne added: “His uncritical acceptance of her account of events is manifestly unsafe.”
The barrister also argued: “The conclusion which flows from an overall assessment of the judgment is that (Mr Justice Nicol) decided to find for the ‘victim’ but failed to provide the necessary analysis to explain or justify that conclusion.
Johnny is keeping lawyers busy on both sides of the pond, because his defamation trial against Amber Heard is supposed to start next year in Virginia.
So we’ll see how this appeal will fare in the courts, but as far as Johnny’s reputation and bankability in Hollywood are concerned, plenty of damage has been done and it’s unknown at this point whether he and his bulging accessories drawers can rise up from the piles of velvety ciggie ashes to rehab his largely self-inflicted-puncture-wounded career. Stay tuned.
Pic: Wenn.com/Avalon