23h 35min, jul 18, 2020 y - JESS PHILLIPS The coverage of the JD libel trial sends the wrong message to DV victims

Description:

Watching how the Johnny Depp vs The Sun case plays out across the newspapers makes me certain I have made the right decision. Every day we are provided with a new watercooler moment for everyone to salivate over. What worries me deeply about this drama is that Amber Heard’s character seems to be on trial, when she had absolutely no part in bringing this case or any other case forward. She is merely a witness in the trial and has no control over what the fallout might be, her life laid bare because of a fight between two other parties. She never got the chance to decide if she would prefer to hobble around on a knackered ankle and just crack on with her life.

I am also deeply concerned about what I read in the papers that seems to be a character assassination of Heard, leaning too far, in my opinion, towards the old tropes about domestic abuse that campaigners like me have tried for years to combat. We are invited to hear claims about how much she drank, what a difficult personality she had, how she used to start arguments, as if any of this is relevant to the question of whether Depp ever abused her. It isn’t.