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Johnny Depp's barrister tells court Amber Heard invented abuse claims Johnny Depp admits heavy drinking but denies abuse of Amber Heard
(about 2 hours later)
Libel case against Sun over term ‘wife beater’ begins in UK high court Actor’s libel case against Sun over term ‘wife-beater’ begins in UK high court
It was Amber Heard, not Johnny Depp, who started fights during their marriage, the high court has been told at the start of a libel battle involving the divorced Hollywood actors. Johnny Depp has admitted excessive drinking, drug-taking and trashing hotel rooms, but denied accusations by his former wife Amber Heard that he had been violent towards her in his libel battle against the Sun, which has accused him of being a “wife-beater”.
It was Heard who was “the abuser” and who invented claims that her former partner was a “wife-beater”, according to an opening statement submitted to the court by Depp’s barrister, David Sherborne. Lawyers for Depp said the accusations of violence made by Heard were “invented” and he strenuously denied that he had ever been violent towards her.
The trial in the Royal Courts of Justice is expected to last three weeks and has been spread across five courts to allow for social distancing and to accommodate the media.The case, Sherborne explained, concerned allegations that Johnny Depp “seriously physically assaulted his former wife, the actress Amber Heard. Not just once but on at least 14 different occasions, it is now said, causing her such serious injuries … that it led Ms Heard to fear for her very life.”The libel claim, however, has been brought not against Heard, but against the Sun newspaper and its executive editor, Dan Wootton, for an article about Depp which included the term “wife beater”.Heard had “initiated” the allegations in 2016 at the time of their divorce, Sherborne said, using them “very publicly, to obtain an ex parte temporary restraining order” against Depp.Heard, Sherborne said, had appeared at a Los Angeles courthouse in May 2016, “trailed by photographers and sporting what appeared to be obvious bruises to her face, which were no doubt designed to be a visual demonstration of her primary incident of alleged violence”.But police officers trained in dealing with domestic violence who attended the incident had not seen “any injuries on the night they were allegedly sustained, or on the next few days”, Sherborne said.“There is a substantial body of evidence, including from these and other witnesses, which clearly demonstrates that this was a lie manufactured by Ms Heard and her friends. The alleged incidents have expanded and become embellished, and even changed character, quite dramatically over the years since then.”Depp’s account, he said, was that he did not attack Heard at all. “Ms Heard has invented these stories of serious violence. He is not and never has been a wife-beater,” Sherborne said.“Indeed, he says that it was Ms Heard who was the one who started physical fights, who punched or hit him (and there was little he could really do to stop this); she was the abuser, not him. And the contemporaneous evidence fully supports that, as the court will hear.”Depp, 57, went into the witness box after Sherborne’s statement was submitted – although it was not read out in court. Giving evidence at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Depp repeatedly insisted he had never been a violent individual but was someone who aspired to be a “southern gentleman”.
He had avoided confrontation in their relationship, he recalled. “Whenever these situations would escalate, I would try and go to my own corner. I wanted to separate before things got out of hand.” On the opening day of a three week trial, the 57-year-old Hollywood actor disputed accounts given by Heard of domestic violence during their marriage.
Questioned about his drug use by Sasha Wass QC, for the Sun, Depp said he first started taking his mother’s “nerve pills” at the age of 11. He stood by an earlier magazine interview he had given in which he said, “I did every kind of drugs there were by the age of 14.”But he denied that he had ever indulged in “destructive behaviour”. He took drugs initially, he said, because “it was the “only thing I found to numb the pain”. The legal action has been brought by Depp after the Sun and its executive editor, Dan Wootton, published an article describing him as a wife-beater based on allegations Heard had made. Heard, 34, who was in court, is due to give evidence for the newspaper in the coming days.
Depp denied having taken ketamine, although he agreed he had consumed cocaine, ecstasy, LSD, mushrooms and cannabis. Written submissions from the parties were released as the hearings began. In one witness statement, Depp claimed Heard had repeatedly punched him in the face and partially severed his finger by throwing a vodka bottle.
Among his role models were writers who had advocated drug use such as the 18th-century writer Thomas de Quincey and Hunter S Thompson, he said. The guitarist Keith Richards had also been been an influence.Wass asked Depp, best known for his role in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, whether he had a “nasty, angry side” to his character. Depp replied: “I’m not aware of that. There has been quite a lot of pain.” Having become a well-known public figure, he acknowledged, “was a confusing thing”.He continued: “You become a product. Your name no longer sounds the way it did. The sound of my own name even sounds foreign to me.”Wass suggested Depp was someone who often expressed his anger by “trashing” hotel rooms. She took him through one such incident when he was said to havecaused almost $10,000 (£7,950) worth of damage to a New York hotel room.“I don’t know the exact amount of damage,” Depp answered. “I made a few dents. Yes.” It had been the culmination of a “particularly bad couple of days”, he said, because he had “been screwed over by a friend”.He added: “I was angry. That didn’t mean I had an anger problem. On that occasion I chose to express my anger.” He denied that it had been because he had quarrelled with a girlfriend. In another statement, the Pirates of the Caribbean and Edward Scissorhands star described her as a “calculating, diagnosed borderline personality” and narcissist who had married him to advance her career.
Depp’s earlier relationship with actor Ellen Barkin was examined by Wass. She accused him in a statement of throwing a bottle in her direction. Depp replied: “Miss Barkin’s statement about what she believed happened is not what happened. I don’t want to call anyone a liar, but I can tell you that never happened.” David Sherborne, Depp’s barrister, said Heard had “invented these stories of serious violence. He is not and never has been a wife-beater.”“Indeed, he says that it was Ms Heard who was the one who started physical fights, who punched or hit him (and there was little he could really do to stop this); she was the abuser, not him.”
The court was told of an occasion when Depp had gone for dinner with his then partner, Vanessa Paradis, who was pregnant with their first child. As the meal ended, it became apparent that “paparazzi” photographers were gathering outside. Depp devised a plan to appear at a loading door to distract them. In a statement Depp also said that he had decided to divorce Heard after she or “possibly one of her friends” defecated in their marital bed, and she dismissed it as “a harmless prank”. He said it was the final straw in their deteriorating marriage.
He admitted picking up a plank of wood when “15 [photographers] were trying to pull open the door” and smacking a hand to keep them out. A statement submitted by News Group newspapers, the publishers of the Sun, said it would demonstrate “that the description of Mr Depp as a ‘wife-beater’ is entirely accurate and truthful.”
Heard attended the hearing on Tuesday. Her spokesperson said in a statement outside court before the trial: “Amber never asked for these proceedings to take place. Amber obtained a domestic violence restraining order against Depp back in 2016 and has tried to moved on with her life.“It is Johnny Depp who brought these proceedings against a British newspaper and has dragged her to the UK courts to give evidence on some of the most distressing moments of her life.” It added: “The sting of the articles is correct – namely that [Depp] beat his wife Amber Heard causing her to suffer significant injury and on occasion leading to her fearing for her life.”
In an opening statement submitted to the court in writing, lawyers for the Sun said they would “demonstrate that the description of Mr Depp as a ‘wife beater’ is entirely accurate and truthful”. The paper said Heard “was forging her own way in the acting profession and was not content to play the role of a supplicant consort. As a result of her having her own career, disputes between the two increasingly arose where Ms Heard’s professional life clashed with Mr Depp’s desire to dominate the relationship.”
The case continues. After Depp entered the witness box, the accusations and counter-accusations intensified. The hearing was shown a short clip filmed by Heard on a mobile phone that appeared to show Depp drinking wine early in the day and smashing bottles or glass in their kitchen.
At one stage Depp admitted he had been spending more than $30,000 (£24,000) a month on wine before he went into rehab. But, he added, “Yes, I drank to excess but drinking to great excess doesn’t mean that you are out of control … Violence is not something I go looking for.”
He had avoided confrontation in his relationship with Heard, he recalled. “Whenever these situations would escalate, I would try and go to my own corner. I wanted to separate before things got out of hand.”
Questioned about drug use by Sasha Wass QC, for the Sun, Depp said he had first started taking his mother’s “nerve pills” at the age of 11. He stood by an earlier magazine interview he had given in which he said: “I did every kind of drugs there were by the age of 14.”He denied that he had ever indulged in “destructive behaviour”. He had taken drugs initially, he said, because “it was the “only thing I found to numb the pain”. He had not taken ketamine but agreed he had used cocaine, ecstasy, LSD, mushrooms and cannabis.
Wass suggested Depp was someone who often expressed his anger by “trashing” hotel rooms. She took him through one incident when he was said to have inflicted almost $10,000 worth of damage on a New York hotel room.“I don’t know the exact amount of damage,” Depp answered. “I made a few dents. Yes.” It had been the culmination of a “particularly bad couple of days”, he said, because he had “been screwed over by a friend”.“I was angry,” he added. “That didn’t mean I had an anger problem. On that occasion I chose to express my anger.” He denied that it had been because he had quarrelled with a girlfriend.
His earlier relationship with actor Ellen Barkin was also examined by Wass. She accused him in a statement of throwing a bottle in her direction.
Depp replied: “Miss Barkin’s statement about what she believed happened is not what happened. I don’t want to call anyone a liar but I can tell you that never happened.”
Asked about his view of himself, Depp occasionally paused for thought and volunteered personal reflections. “When one’s aspiration is to be a great gentleman, to be a great southern gentleman, that doesn’t exclude you from the family of humans who have moments of frustration,” he stated in one answer.
Heard’s spokesperson said in a statement outside court before the trial: “Amber was never asked for these proceedings to take place. Amber obtained a domestic violence restraining order against Depp back in 2016 and has tried to move on with her life.“It is Johnny Depp who brought these proceedings against a British newspaper and has dragged her to the UK courts to give evidence on some of the most distressing moments of her life.”
The hearing continues.