Johnny Depp loses ‘wife beater’ libel case against The Sun

“The great majority of alleged assaults” of Amber Heard by Johnny Depp were proved to sufficient standard, the judge said

Actor Johnny Depp has lost his libel claim against the publishers of The Sun newspaper following an article calling him a “wife beater”.

Judge Justice Nicol has ruled that the tabloid newspaper’s report on allegations that Depp was violent towards ex-wife Amber Heard was “substantially true”, three months after the high profile three-week trial.

The Sun published a news column titled “Gone Potty: How can JK Rowling be ‘genuinely happy’ casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?”, written by executive editor Dan Wootton in April 2018.

This comes after Chancellor Rishi Sunak has stressed that these new COVID-19 restrictions are time limited, and he has told the BBC that the government’s “expectation and firm hope is that the measures put in place will be sufficient to do the job we need”.

During the hearing, the court was told of Johnny Depp’s extensive use of alcohol and drugs, read text messages in which he called his ex-wife a “witch” and suggested that he should burn her, and shown videos that featured him punching and hitting cupboards in his kitchen.

In his ruling, the judge said that while Depp “proved the necessary elements of his cause of action in libel”, News Group Newspapers (NGN) showed that what they published was “substantially true”.

NGN had relied on 14 different allegations of domestic violence, that date between early 2013 and May of 2016, in its defence to Mr Depp’s claim. In his ruling, Mr Justice Nicol said that he found “a great majority” – 12 of the 14 – alleged incidents did indeed take place.

Following the ruling, a spokesman for The Sun said: “The Sun has stood up and campaigned for the victims of domestic abuse for over 20 years.”

“Domestic abuse victims must never be silenced and we thank the judge for his careful consideration and thank Amber Heard for her courage in giving evidence to the court.”

In his ruling, Mr Justice Nicol concluded that Amber Heard was not responsible for the injuries, but said that the exact cause of the physical damage was uncertain.

Johnny Depp was upset as a result of his belief that Heard was having an affair, and was reportedly feeling stressed by “his dissatisfaction or concern about the Pirates Of The Caribbean series and with what he saw as his legacy”, the judge said.

He added:

“Mr Depp did what he often did when subjected to stress: he drank alcohol excessively and used controlled drugs.”

While he said Heard’s description of the incident in Australia “was something of a hyperbole” as she “could have left the house”, the judge said he accepted “she was the victim of sustained and multiple assaults by Mr Depp in Australia”.

George Eustice has recently said that it is “too early to say” how people will be able to celebrate Christmas this year, with strict COVID-19 rules in place across large parts of the UK. On Tuesday, COVID-19 deaths in the UK hit their highest level for five months when 367 new fatalities linked to the novel coronavirus and nearly 23,000 more cases were recorded.

Heard’s lawyer Ms Bredehoft said that the actress’s team will “be presenting even more voluminous evidence in the US”.

She added: “We are committed to obtaining justice for Amber Heard in the US court and defending Ms Heard’s right to free speech.”