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By JILL LAWLESS, Related Press
LONDON (AP) — A British decide will resolve Monday whether or not a tabloid newspaper defamed Johnny Depp by calling him a “spouse beater,” a ruling with enormous implications for the careers of each Depp and former partner Amber Heard.
Justice Andrew Nicol is because of ship his judgement in writing, three months after the top of a trial that uncovered stark particulars of the Hollywood couple’s tempestuous marriage. There can be no in-person listening to due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Depp sued Information Group Newspapers, writer of The Solar, and the newspaper’s government editor, Dan Wootton, at London’s Excessive Court docket over an April 2018 article that accused him of assaulting Heard, an actress whose movies embrace “Justice League” and “Aquaman.”
Each Depp and Heard spent a number of days within the witness field in the course of the three-week trial in July, giving irreconcilable accounts of their unstable relationship. The pair met on the set of 2011 comedy “The Rum Diary” and married in Los Angeles in 2015. They separated the next yr and divorced in 2017.
Heard, 34, testified as the principle witness for the protection, saying Depp changed into a violent alter ego he dubbed the “Monster” when drunk and medicines. She alleged 14 separate incidents between 2013 and 2016 through which he hit, slapped and shoved her, pulled her hair and threw bottles at her. The alleged assaults occurred in glamorous settings together with the couple’s luxurious penthouse, Depp’s personal island within the Bahamas and an government jet.
Depp, 57, branded he allegations “sick” and a “hoax” and claimed Heard was the aggressor throughout their relationship. He claimed that Heard hit him, even severing the tip of his finger with a thrown vodka bottle throughout an altercation in Australia throughout filming of a “Pirates of the Caribbean” film.
Depp acknowledged heavy drug use, saying he took marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy and magic mushrooms, and have become hooked on opioid painkillers. However he denied that medication made him violent.
“I’m actually not a violent individual, particularly with ladies,” he stated.
Sasha Wass, lawyer for Information Group Newspapers, stated there was “little question that Mr. Depp frequently and systematically abused his spouse.”
Heard insisted she was telling the reality and stated she had spoken out reluctantly.
“What girl has ever benefited from being a sufferer of home violence?” she requested in courtroom.
Depp’s lawyer, David Sherborne, accused Heard of wrongly donning the mantle of the #MeToo motion and known as her “a completely unreliable witness and albeit a compulsive liar.”
Either side provided testimony from mates and former workers to again their model of occasions, and the decide should resolve which account is extra credible.
If Depp loses, his profession might by no means get well. If he wins, he’s prone to get solely a modest sum in damages. However Sherborne advised the courtroom “this isn’t a case about cash. It’s about vindication.”
Mark Stephens, a media lawyer on the legislation agency Howard Kennedy, stated, in the long run, “each events are going to lose this case.”
“The reputations of each Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are tarnished irrevocably,” Stephens stated. “I feel that it’s going to persist, as a result of whoever wins on this case, the way in which through which this case was introduced, the problems that got here up, significantly round gendered presentation of the case, I feel that’s going to be studied for years to return.”
Depp can also be suing Heard for $50 million in Virginia over a Washington Publish story about home violence. The trial is because of be held subsequent yr.
Danica Kirka in London contributed to this story.
Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This materials will not be revealed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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