Daily Times

Johnny Depp was the victim of invented allegations and physical violence from his former wife Amber Heard, London’s High Court was told on Tuesday, the final day of the Hollywood actor’s three-week libel suit against a British tabloid. “Pirates of the Caribbean” star Depp is suing News Group Newspapers, publishers of the Sun, and one of its journalists, Dan Wootton, over a 2018 article that called him a “wife beater”.

Depp, 57, and Heard, 34, both gave evidence at the trial. Depp said he had never been violent towards Heard or any other woman and that she was the one who had attacked him. Heard said Depp assaulted her on at least 14 occasions, including punching, head-butting and throttling her, and on Monday her lawyer said Depp was “a hopeless addict”.

In his closing speech, Depp’s lawyer David Sherborne said while Depp had been open about his use of drugs and alcohol, Heard had played down her own consumption of them as well as her anger and jealousy issues. “She is the abuser, not Mr Depp. He is no wife beater,” Sherborne told the court. He said Heard was a “wholly unreliable witness and, frankly, compulsive liar” who had tailored her story to meet the evidence produced against her and lied about injuries she said she had suffered.

A recording was played to the court in which Depp tells Heard she is lying when she says she did not punch him, which Sherborne said demonstrated Heard’s “propensity to violence”. “Don’t tell me what it feels like to be punched,” Depp said in the recording, before Heard retorts: “I hit you like this. But I did not punch you.”

Sherborne said the admission that Heard hit Depp would have caused “consternation” if the roles were reversed.