Johnny Depp is the victim of "career-ending" false allegations, his lawyer has claimed on the final day of the star's libel case over an article published in The Sun.
Mr Depp, 57, is suing the tabloid’s publisher, News Group Newspapers (NGN) and its executive editor, Dan Wootton, over a 2018 article which labelled him a “wife beater”. NGN relies on 14 alleged incidents of domestic violence against the star by ex-wife Amber Heard. Mr Depp denies the allegations of violence and claims Ms Heard, 34, was the one who was abusive.
The Hollywood star accused Ms Heard of severing his finger by throwing a vodka bottle at him when the pair were in Australia in 2015. Ms Heard said the injury to Mr Depp’s finger took place during what she described as a “three-day hostage situation”, and in her statement she said she “figured it might have happened when he was smashing the phone on the wall by the fridge”.
Mr Depp also claims that Ms Heard "or one of her cohort" defecated in his bed as a "prank", an event which he calls a "fitting end" to their relationship. Ms Heard strenuously denies the accusation and maintains it must have been one of their pet dogs.
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Depp made efforts to destroy Heard's wardrobe after 'staircase incident', court hears
Sasha Wass then moved on to “the staircase incident”, also in March 2015, when Johnny Depp is said to have repeatedly hit Amber Heard in the head in Los Angeles.
The barrister said: “Despite Mr Depp and Ms Heard’s joint experience in Australia, neither chose to split and this is a further illustration of the complexity of the relationship.”
Ms Wass said Ms Heard admitted punching Mr Depp “in an attempt to protect her sister (Whitney Henriquez) and this is the only incident in which Ms Heard accepts causing injury to Mr Depp”.
She added: “Mr Depp went on to punch Amber Heard with his right hand which was covered in a plaster cast at the time.”
Ms Wass referred to a suggestion by Mr Depp’s lawyers that Ms Heard had not mentioned the fact that the actor’s hand was in a cast, and said: “In fact, Amber Heard made a declaration in the American libel proceedings which mentions the cast in relation to this incident… so the suggestion that is a recent fabrication is completely inaccurate.”
Ms Wass said that, following “the staircase incident”, Mr Depp “made efforts to destroy Ms Heard’s wardrobe…and there were pictures of the damage, clothes strewn all over the floor” taken after the incident.
She said: “Mr Depp has offered no explanation for this destruction, but it is an indicator of his mood, of his frame of mind and his aggression.
“The likelihood of Ms Heard destroying her own wardrobe, we suggest, is inconceivable.”
Ms Wass added: “It is significant, we say, that shortly after Whitney Henriquez witnessed first-hand the violence of Mr Depp against her sister that Mr Depp accused her of leaking photographs of his wedding to media.”
She also said: “These two sisters, who had always been so close, were then estranged for many months.”
Depp 'cut his own finger off', court hears
Sasha Wass continued that it was “not only that Mr Depp had wrecked the house, he had cut off his own finger” and then “went on to dip his finger in paint, his injured finger in paint, and scrawled graffiti over the property”.
She said: “The question has got to be asked: what sort of state was Mr Depp in when he behaved in this way? He was literally out of his mind.
“He was certainly in the mood to hurt Ms Heard and he did hurt Ms Heard.”
Ms Wass said that “a five-hour tape that inadvertently recorded Mr Depp’s staff in that house was significant” because his staff “appear not surprised nor shocked when they saw the damage, nor were they surprised or shocked when they were told by Ms Heard that Mr Depp had taken 10 ecstasy tablets”.
The barrister also said his staff’s “primary concern was damage limitation to keep this shameful episode quiet” and that they and Mr Depp “agreed on a false story” for how he damaged his finger.
She added: “There was never any suggestion that Ms Heard was responsible for that finger.”
Depp 'concocted story that Amber Heard hurt his finger', Aquaman star's lawyer claims
Sasha Wass QC told the court that “this story that Ms Heard was responsible (for the injury to Mr Depp’s finger) was only concocted after Ms Heard got a domestic violence restraining order”.
She added: “This was a story circulated by Mr Depp and his PR machine… in order to discredit Ms Heard.”
Ms Wass also said that Johnny Depp’s account – that Amber Heard threw a vodka bottle at his hand while it was resting on the bar in the house in Australia – is “wholly inconsistent” with the medical evidence, not least because there were “no signs of any glass shards” in his hand.
The barrister continued: “But it was not only Mr Depp who was injured in Australia, Ms Heard was too.”
Ms Wass said Mr Depp’s then head of security Jerry Judge could be heard on the five-hour recording taken in the house in Australia saying that “he saw cuts on Ms Heard’s arms”.
She added that those cuts were “consistent with Ms Heard’s account of having to pull herself up by the forearms after Mr Depp had thrown her onto the floor and the floor had been covered with the glass bottles that Mr Depp had smashed”.
Depp 'trashed a trailer', court hears
Ms Wass turned to the alleged incident in Hicksville, California, in June 2013, and said there was “common ground” that Johnny Depp took exception to a woman named Kelly Sue.
The barrister said Mr Depp assaulted Ms Heard on that occasion and, during the course of the assault, “trashed the trailer”.
Ms Wass said Kristina Sexton, Ms Heard’s acting coach, was at Hicksville and described the damage to the trailer, saying she saw broken glass strewn everywhere and fabric had been ripped.
Ms Wass said Ms Sexton was a “careful and precise witness” who has since moved to Australia and has not seen Ms Heard for a number of years.
The barrister added: “She has no possible motive to make up the extensive damage that she said she saw to the trailer.”
Heard 'muddled up two incidents', court hears
Ms Wass said Amber Heard realised, when she was going through her evidence ahead of the trial, that she had muddled up two incidents in March 2013.
She said the actress’s initial account was that the “painting incident” happened when Mr Depp was consuming “vast quantities” of cocaine and alcohol and took exception to a picture in Ms Heard’s house painted by her former partner Tasya van Ree.
The barrister said Mr Depp accepted there was a disagreement when he asked Ms Heard to remove the painting, adding: “Jealousy was the trigger for that incident of violence and jealousy proved to be the catalyst for other explosions.”
She said the alleged incident in Hicksville, California, in June 2013, was provoked by Mr Depp’s jealousy over a woman called Kelly Sue, while alleged incidents in May and December 2014 were also sparked by his jealously over actor James Franco and writer Clive Barker respectively.
Ms Wass added: “Indeed, jealously provoked the rampage of violence that was conducted by Mr Depp in Australia in March 2015.”
She said Ms Heard had refused to remove the painting and her evidence was that Mr Depp tried to set fire to it with a cigarette lighter.
The barrister said when Ms Heard tried to intervene, Mr Depp slapped her with the back of his hand, accused her of having an affair, grabbed her, shook her and shoved her into a wall.
'Wino forever tattoo became joke when Depp began acting like alcoholic', Heard's lawyer tells court
Sasha Wass QC told the court Ms Heard’s evidence is that the first occasion Johnny Depp – who did not attend court on Monday – assaulted her was in 2013, when she laughed at his “Wino Forever” tattoo.
The barrister said Ms Heard had seen the tattoo – which previously read “Winona Forever” with reference to the actor’s ex-fiancee Winona Ryder – many times before but it only became “a joke” when he started behaving like a “wino” or alcoholic.
She said the attack was short-lived, adding: “Mr Depp slapped her (Ms Heard) three times and very quickly this assault was followed by tears, apologies and the explanation that Mr Depp would regularly offer to explain his violent outbursts, namely that he had an illness and it was ‘the monster’ who had hit Ms Heard, not him.
Ms Wass referred to a text message sent to Ms Heard by Mr Depp following the alleged “Boston plane incident” just over a year later in May 2014, in which he wrote: “I really don’t know what happened but I will never do it again.
“I want to get better for you and for me, my illness somehow crept up on me.”
'No evidence Amber Heard resonsible for Depp allegedly breaking sobriety', court hears
Sasha Wass QC reminded Mr Justice Nicol that there are 14 pleaded allegations of violence in support of NGN’s defence of truth to Mr Depp’s libel claim.
She submitted that the truthfulness and accuracy of each of the incidents was capable of supporting the other.
The barrister said the first incident was in March 2013 when Mr Depp broke his sobriety by drinking alcohol and taking cocaine.
She said this was around the same time he was “overseeing” his then 13-year-old daughter, Lily Rose Depp, taking cannabis, and that Mr Depp admitted spending time at the house in Orange Avenue, Los Angeles, which Ms Heard rented with her sister Whitney Henriquez.
Ms Wass said: “He must have been deeply disappointed with himself when he broke his sobriety after a relatively long period of abstinence.”
She said it was not known what caused him to break sobriety but that there was no evidence Ms Heard was in any way responsible.
Amber Heard 'thought she could reform Depp', court hears
Ms Wass said Amber Heard had given evidence that she and Johnny Depp had “a wonderful year together” between around 2011 and 2012, before he “fell off the wagon”.
The barrister said: “Mr Depp knew full well that illegal drugs and alcohol turned him into a monster and that is why he repeatedly attempted detoxification programmes, but each time he fell off the wagon his grip on reality became more and more tenuous and his conduct became more violent and more extreme.
“Once Ms Heard became aware of Mr Depp’s chronic addictions, she drew upon the experience of her own father’s alcohol and drug addictions and thought she could reform him.
“Unfortunately, this had the reverse effect: Mr Depp was both ashamed and annoyed by what he saw as Ms Heard’s criticism and his inadequacies and this served to inflame Mr Depp only to make the situation worse.”
The High Court has heard that Johnny Depp 'may not even remember beating up wife Amber Heard due to drug and alcohol abuse', The Evening Standard's court correspondent Tristan Kirk reports
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Depp accused of using 'old fashioned tropes', court hears
Ms Wass then said to the court in the Johnny Depp libel hearing: “In addition to these accusations of violence, drinking to excess and being a heavy drug user – none of which, we say, has been substantiated in evidence – (Mr Depp has also used) old-fashioned methods used to discredit a woman: that she is a gold-digger, a shrew and an adulterer.”
The barrister said: “Infidelity takes the matter no further, it is denied by Ms Heard and I will say no more about it.”
Referring to the suggestion that Ms Heard was a “gold-digger”, Ms Wass showed the court a “list of donors to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles” which she said showed Ms Heard donated somewhere between one and five million US dollars to the hospital.
Ms Wass added that “when the court comes to consider the hoax defence, the question must be asked why – what is the purpose of this hoax?”
She continued: “These are libel proceedings, they are not matrimonial proceedings, although an onlooker might have been forgiven for confusing the two.”
Ms Wass told the court was not deciding “who is at fault” during the marriage, but whether “Mr Depp assaulted Ms Heard on at least one occasion”.