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Johnny Depp has lost an offer to cancel conviction of the Supreme Court which he concluded attacked his ex-wife Amber Heard left her in fear for her life.
After a three-week trial last July, Judge Nicole dismissed the Hollywood star’s defamation suit against The Sun publisher, finding that an April 2018 column calling Mr Depp a “beating wife” was “under being true. “
The judge sentenced Mr Depp, 57, to attack Ms. Hurd, 34, a dozen times, and made her fear for her life three times.
The actor had asked the Court of Appeal to give him permission to challenge the decision, in order to have his findings overturned and a retrial ordered. This has already been denied.
At last week’s hearing, Mr Depp’s lawyers asked the court to examine new evidence related to Ms Hurd’s claim that she had given seven million US dollars (5.5 million British pounds) for a charity divorce.
Mr Depp’s lawyer, Andrew Caldecott KK, told the court that the lawsuit was a “calculated and manipulative lie”.
Following the couple’s divorce in 2016, Ms. Hurd said she would split the seven million dollars between the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
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But, Mr Caldecott said, the hospital wrote to Mr Depp’s business adviser in 2019 that Ms Hurd had not made “any payments”.
The court heard only $ 100,000 (£ 72,000) for the hospital and £ 450,000 (£ 322,000) for the ACLU, although Ms Hurd claims to have made another $ 500,000 (£ 358,000) donation to the second charity anonymously. .
Mr Caldecott said the allegations had given Ms Hurd “a significant boost in her confidence as a person” and “tipped the scales against Mr Depp from the start”.
In November, Judge Nicole dismissed Mr Depp’s claim that Ms. Hurd was a “gold digger”, saying in her ruling: “Her donation of seven million dollars to charity is hardly an act that one could to expect from a prospector. ”
But Mr Caldecott argued that “if the truth about the charity claim came to light at the trial, it would significantly affect Judge Nicole’s examination of Ms. Hurd’s evidence as a whole.”
He said the fact that Ms. Hurd had publicly donated her divorce agreement to charity was important for “the likelihood that she would be a victim of severe domestic violence.”
Mr Caldecott said the donation was “a completely remarkable act of philanthropy, if true”, adding that it was also a “powerful subconscious message:” I want him to pay, but I don’t want to keep a penny of my money because of the way by which I was treated with me ”.
He told the court: “In the context of this case, this implies disgust with the way he treated her physically.”
But Adam Wallanski KK, representing the publisher of The Sun News Group Newspapers (NGN), said the new evidence Depp wanted to rely on “would have no effect” on the outcome of the trial.
He said that the issue of donating the village to charity was only relevant to the “so-called” gold digger “thesis, and this is, of course, a thesis that was explicitly abandoned by Mr. Depp’s legal team during the trial.”
Mr Volanski added: “Mrs Hurd’s labeling as a gold digger was a misogynistic group. The prospector theory was hopeless. “
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He also rejected Mr Depp’s assertion that Ms Hurd lied, that she had donated her divorce agreement to charity, saying: “The information does not show that Ms Hurd lied.”
Mr Volanski added that Ms Hurd had paid “a total of about $ 950,000 to the ACLU and $ 850,000 to the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles”.
On Thursday morning, Lord Justice Underhill and Lord Justice Dingemans will give the court a decision on whether Mr Depp can appeal the High Court’s decision.
The decision of the Court of Appeal will be announced in the Royal Court in London at 10 o’clock.
Mr. Depp filed a lawsuit against NGN in June 2018 over a column by The Sun’s executive editor Dan Watton, which referred to “compelling evidence” that he had attacked Ms. Hurd.
In his decision, Judge Nicole concluded that 12 of the 14 alleged incidents of domestic violence cited by NGN in defense of the actor’s allegation had occurred.
The judge also found that Mr. Depp put Ms. Hurd in “fear for her life” three times, including one that the actress described as a “three-day hostage situation” in Australia in March 2015.
Days after the decision in November, Mr. Depp announced that he had been asked by Warner Brothers to retire from his role in the separate Harry Potter franchise Fantastic Beasts – a role that prompted Mr. Wootton to ask how JK Rowling could be “Really happy” that Mr. Depp was cast in the film.
Mr Depp is embroiled in a separate defamation battle in the United States after personally suing Ms. Hurd over the Washington Post’s 2018 opinion, in which she claims to be a victim of domestic violence but does not mention actor by name.
The actor’s $ 50 million (US $ 35 million) lawsuit against Ms. Hurd was recently adjourned until April 2022.
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Reporting by PA
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