Johnny Depp will not have his day in court (again). The actor was denied an appeal in his UK high profile defamation case with The sun editor News Group Newspapers.
Depp was seeking to overturn a decision in which Judge Andrew Niccol ruled that the tabloid was fair in calling him a “wife beater”, with the verdict stating that the charge was “substantially true” in relation to his relationship with the former wife Amber Heard. That decision has now been confirmed by the UK Court of Appeal.
This is a significant blow to Depp. After the initial trial, he was removed from Warner Bros. Fantastic animals franchise and replaced by Mads Mikkelsen, and he is now smeared with the ‘wife beater’ brush before his successful defamation trial against Heard in the US next year.
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Johnny Depp is awaiting an appeal decision in the “Wife Beater” defamation case; The actor’s team calls Amber Heard’s $ 7 million charity donation “A Manipulative Lie”
Responding to today’s verdict, Depp’s lawyer, Joelle Rich of Schillings Partners, sent a statement to Deadline saying that she “seriously questioned” the UK court’s decision and that the actor was eager to “present the complete and irrefutable evidence of the truth in the US defamation case against Mrs. Heard, where she will have to provide full disclosure” .
A spokesman for Heard said they were “satisfied, but not at all surprised” by the decision and called the Depp team’s claim ‘new and important evidence’ of “nothing more than a press strategy”.
“The evidence presented in the UK case was overwhelming and undeniable. To reiterate, the original verdict was that Mr. Depp committed domestic violence against Amber on no less than 12 occasions and she was afraid of her life, ”they added.
Appeal judges Lord Justice Dingemans and Lord Justice Underhill released a 14-page document explaining their decision this morning.
“The hearing before Nicol J was complete and fair, and he gave complete reasons for his conclusions, which have not been proven, even without a doubt, as being vitiated by any error of approach or deception of law,” they said.
The court explained that it did not believe that the Depp team’s criticisms of Judge Niccol had a real chance of success in the appeal and that it did not accept that the judge had been influenced by the idea of Heard’s $ 7 million charity donations from his settlement agreement. divorce with Depp, which the actor’s representatives claimed was never fulfilled.
Andrew Caldecott QC led the tender for appeal on behalf of Depp. Last week, he told the UK Court of Appeals that an allegation made against Heard in January – she had falsely claimed that the $ 7 million divorce payment had been given to a charity – was the foundation for that. the appeal was heard.
During the original trial in the UK High Court, Heard said he donated the full amount to causes, including the LA Children’s Hospital Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, and this was cited by News Group lawyers as evidence that the actress could not be characterized as a “gold digger”. Earlier this year, his lawyer in the US admitted Deadline that the donations had been “postponed”, but claimed that this was due to Depp’s lawsuit against the actress, which cost millions of dollars in attorney’s fees.
Caldecott argued that the donation “tipped the scales from the beginning” of the case and that Heard made a “calculated and manipulative lie”. He claimed that the original court may have been unable to verify Heard’s credibility because he was influenced by the idea of the $ 7 million donation.
News Groups representative Adam Wolanski countered by saying that Heard did not lie, that donations will be made and that the information was available to Depp’s team long before the original trial. He also said that the “gold digger” argument was a “misogynistic trope”.
In today’s appeals decision, judges said they did not find out whether her statements about her donations were misleading, noting that Depp’s team had not raised the issue at the trial and that they saw no reason to believe that the original judge’s decision was influenced by what was said about donations.
In the United States, Depp’s $ 50 million defamation trial against Herd was recently postponed until April 11, 2022. The actress is also seeking a $ 100 million lawsuit.