10h 20min, jul 7, 2020 y - Depp v NGN & Wootton UK LIBEL TRIAL Day 1: MEDIA COVERAGE & REPORTS 7 JULY 2020

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Johnny Depp 'is not and never has been a wife beater', actor's lawyers tell High Court on day one of libel case
The actor is suing The Sun over an article which called him a "wife beater" and referred to "overwhelming evidence" he attacked Amber Heard

By Patrick Sawer and Gareth Davies

Johnny Depp referred to the jealous and controlling side of his character as “the monster”, blaming his “illness” for the violence and abuse he inflicted on his former wife, court documents have claimed.

The Hollywood superstar is accused of subjecting Amber Heard to a catalogue of violence during their two-year marriage, in which he allegedly punched, kicked and slapped her, dragged her by the hair and threatened to kill her.

The claims of years of torment inflicted on Ms Heard from even before they married in February 2015 emerged during the opening of a libel case being brought by Mr Depp against NGN, the publisher of The Sun newspaper.

The Pirates of the Carribean star accuses the paper of causing serious harm to his reputation by describing him, in an online story from April 2018, as “wife beater” who was violently abusive towards his wife.

The High Court on Tuesday heard details of Mr Depp’s drug use - which began "at a very young age" when he took one of his mother's "nerve pills" - with the star forced to admit in the witness stand that he took cocaine and other drugs with the British actor Paul Bettany, described in court as his “drug buddy”, and Keith Richards, his favourite guitarist.

But at the heart of the case are the claims that Mr Depp, 57, was repeatedly violent against Ms Heard and deserved to be described as a “wife beater”.

In an opening statement submitted to the court, NGN’s barrister Sasha Wass QC, said: “The claimant [Depp] beat his wife Amber Heard causing her to suffer significant injury and on occasion leading to her fearing for her life.”

Ms Wass said the actor was not prepared to accept that Ms Heard, 34, - who arrived with her lawyers in a car which drove into the entrance normally reserved for judges - did not want to “play the role of a supplicant consort”.

“Disputes between the two increasingly arose where Ms Heard’s professional life clashed with Mr Depp’s desire to dominate the relationship,” said Ms Wass, adding: “These conflicts manifested themselves in arguments where Mr Depp became abusive and aggressively jealous, on occasion falsely accusing Ms Heard of having sexual relationships with her co-stars.”

The court was told that when he was sober Mr Depp, who arrived at court wearing a black face mask, was “capable of kindness, charm and generosity”. But this would change under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

Ms Wass said: “The side of character which he described as “the monster” was jealous, controlling, violent and savage.”

Following his violent rages Mr Depp would apologise and blame his “illness”, saying “the monster” had taken over, she added.

Ms Heard’s legal team said it would submit evidence of 13 separate occasions when Mr Depp had used physical violence against her, some of which were carried out in front of witnesses, including his own entourage.

It claims that in one of the worst examples, during a private flight to Los Angeles in May 2014, Mr Depp - “drunk and under the influence of a cocktail of controlled drugs” - unleashed a tirade of verbal and physical abuse against Ms Heard.

Mr Depp is said to have been unable to remember details of his behaviour - but once he had sobered up, the film star sent a text to his wife, stating: “Of course, I’m sorry. I really don’t know what happened. But I will never do it again. I want to get better for you. And for me. I must. My illness somehow crept up and grabbed me.”

In another alleged incident, in December, 2015, Mr Depp is accused of throwing a decanter at Ms Heard in their LA penthouse, before slapping her and dragging her through the apartment by her hair, allegedly pulling "large chunks of hair" from her scalp.

But in a witness statement filed to the court as part of his case against NGN, The Sun and its writer Dan Wooton, Mr Depp described Ms Heard’s claims that he subjected her to "torture and other abuse" as "sick" and "completely untrue".

He accused her of being the abusive partner in their relationship, claiming Ms Heard was “sociopathic” and a “narcissist” who suffered “extreme mood swings” and would fly into “violent rages” against him.

He said after one incident in which Ms Heard allegedly hit him he had felt forced to call his security guard, named Travis.

Mr Depp said he resolved to divorce her after faeces were left in their bed. He said he understood that Ms Heard "or possibly one of her friends" defecated in their bed, with Ms Heard allegedly describing it as "just a harmless prank".

In his statement Mr Depp accused his ex-wife of repeatedly punching him in the face during a private charter flight and in a separate incident of severing his finger by throwing a vodka bottle at him.

The court also heard that the actor Ellen Barkin, in a witness statement to a separate libel trial in the US, accused Mr Depp of being “a jealous man, controlling” and that there was “a world of violence” surrounding him.

Mr Depp, who told the court he shunned violence from the moment he heard in 1998 that he was to become a father with his then partner Vanessa Paradis, accused Ms Barkin of holding “a grudge” against him and saying what Ms Heard wanted.

In March 2012 Depp emailed Sir Elton John to thank him for his support in his battle with alcohol.

The court was played a video clip, recorded by Ms Heard without Mr Depp's knowledge, in which he could be seen agitated and pacing around a room wearing a denim shirt and a large cowboy hat while pouring himself a “mega-pint of wine'' for breakfast. At one point he shouts "motherf*****" and kicks a cabinet a number of times.

Asked by Ms Wass whether he agreed he was violent in the video clip Mr Depp said: "I was violent with some cupboards."

He also dismissed a comment he had made following an incident at a New York hotel in the early 1990s that "some guys go play golf, some guys smash hotel rooms", saying it was said "with some semblance of humour as it is a ridiculous notion that a grown man would attack a hotel room".

Ms Wass confronted Mr Depp about his allegedly violent behaviour, stating: "We see you now, very charming and polite and very softly-spoken, but there is another side of you, isn't there, that is less charming."

Mr Depp replied: "I'm afraid that would not be for me to judge."

Ms Heard is represented by Jennifer Robinson, the solicitor who was photographed in a clinch with Jeremy Corbyn’s then chief advisor Seamus Milne in 2017.

Depp and Heard arrived at court wearing face masks
Johnny Depp arrived at the High Court for the first day of his libel case against The Sun over allegations of domestic violence wearing a face mask.

Mr Depp was wearing a face covering and sunglasses as walked into the main entrance of the Royal Courts of Justice in central London.

More than 30 photographers were waiting at the entrance as the Hollywood star arrived at 9.55am.

Mr Depp's former wife, Amber Heard, also arrived on Tuesday for the start of the three-week trial.

Wearing a red face covering, she walked in to court holding hands with two women.

In an April 2018 column, The Sun's executive editor Dan Wootton asked how Harry Potter author JK Rowling could be "genuinely happy" Mr Depp had been cast in the latest film in the Fantastic Beasts spin-off franchise despite the allegations by Ms Heard.

The Pirates Of The Caribbean star denies ever having been violent to Ms Heard, and claims the article included quotes from alleged victims of disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein in order to "finish his career" by linking the allegations against him to the Me Too and Time's Up movements.

NGN is defending the article as true and says Mr Depp was "controlling and verbally and physically abusive towards Ms Heard, particularly when he was under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs" between early 2013 and May 2016, when the couple split.

The publisher relies on 14 alleged incidents of domestic violence, including what Ms Heard describes as a "three-day hostage situation" in Australia in March 2015 when Mr Depp lost the tip of his middle finger in disputed circumstances.

Mr Depp failed in a last-minute bid to stop his ex-wife attending until she is called to give evidence.

The court is expected to hear evidence by videolink from Mr Depp's former partners actresses Vanessa Paradis and Winona Ryder, who both say he was never violent to them, as well as Ms Heard's friends who claim they were present when Mr Depp was abusive.

Ms Heard's former assistant Kate James, who claims she was asked to lie to the Australian authorities over the couple bringing their dogs into the country illegally in 2015, is also among the witnesses due to give evidence.

Mr Depp's case was almost thrown out of court last week after NGN's lawyers said they were not given texts between him and his assistant Nathan Holmes, which apparently showed the star asking for "happy pills" and "whitey stuff", shortly before the 2015 trip to Australia.

The trial judge, Mr Justice Nicol, ruled Mr Depp was in breach of a court order to provide documents which have been disclosed in separate libel proceedings against Ms Heard in the US, but said the case should still go ahead.

The High Court has previously heard around 70,000 of Mr Depp's texts were accidentally sent to NGN by his former lawyers, which included messages sent to actor Paul Bettany in November 2013 in which Mr Depp wrote: "Let's burn Amber."

He also said: "Let's drown her before we burn her!!! I will f**k her burnt corpse afterwards to make sure she is dead."

Another text sent by Mr Depp - to his friend Christian Carino on August 15 2016, around the time he and Ms Heard broke up - said Ms Heard was "begging for global humiliation" and that she was "going to get it".

The message added: "I have no mercy, no fear and not an ounce of emotion or what I thought was love for this gold-digging, low-level, dime-a-dozen, mushy, pointless, dangling, overused flappy fish market."

Mr Depp's lawyers claim Ms Heard was conducting "two extra-martial affairs" - with SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk and actor James Franco - at the time of the alleged abuse and say secret recordings of the couple's conversations show she was "the aggressor" of the pair.

The trial was originally due to start in March but was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic and is now going to occupy five courtrooms, with the lawyers and judge "in court", journalists in another courtroom and members of the public in three others to ensure social distancing.

The actor's case against NGN and Mr Wootton arises out of the publication of an article on The Sun's website on April 27 2018 with the headline "Gone Potty: How can JK Rowling be 'genuinely happy' casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?"

The words "wife beater" were removed from the headline the following morning and were not used in the print edition, but Mr Depp says the article still caused "serious harm to his personal and professional reputation" and "significant distress and embarrassment".

Mr Depp's libel claim against Ms Heard in Virginia - over a December 2018 column in the Washington Post which said the actress received "the full force of our culture's wrath for women who speak out", but did not mention Mr Depp by name - is due to begin next January.

The pair met on the set of 2011 comedy-drama The Rum Diary - based on a novel by Mr Depp's friend, Hunter S Thompson, who he played in the 1998 film Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas - and began living together in 2012 before marrying in Los Angeles in February 2015.

Ms Heard obtained a restraining order against Mr Depp in LA shortly after the couple split in 2016 and donated her seven million US dollars (£5.5 million) divorce settlement to charity.

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