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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Johnny Depp arrives at the High Court
Johnny Depp gestures to fans (AFP)
Amber Heard arrives at the High Court
Amber Heard arriving to hear closing submissions (AP)
Closing submissions so far: On Monday the court heard Depp was 'no southern gentleman'
Sasha Wass QC referred to Mr Depp’s witness statement, in which he referred to himself as a “Southern gentleman”.
Ms Wass said: “He described himself as a Southern gentleman who had respect for women. A perusal of his texts demonstrates this to be entirely untrue.
“He described women as sluts, fat ugly whores, he boasted to someone in a text exchange ‘I will smack the ugly c*** around’ after asking whether a ‘worthless hooker’ had arrived.
“Now, Mr Depp denied that that conversation was concerning the payment of sex. He said that this this was a joke between himself and his ex-partner Vanessa Paradis, whom incidentally he described as a ‘withering c***’ in another email.
“Mr Depp has chosen not to rely on Ms Paradis as a witness in this case but, far from treating women with respect, the evidence in this case demonstrates a deep misogyny which lay at the root of Mr Depp’s anger and the anger that Mr Depp felt towards Ms Heard, which translated into violence when he felt threatened by her.”
Sasha Wass describes Johnny Depp and Amber Heard’s relationship as “a clash of cultures and clash of generations”
She added: “Ms Heard was a modern and ambitious woman. It was not in her nature to wait until he got home so she could take his boots off and the self-scripted Southern gentleman required a supplicant wife.
“When Mr Depp chose Ms Heard as his life partner, he did not expect her to carry on acting in films with young and attractive actors.
“Mr Depp was unable to control Ms Heard and… it had a detrimental effect on his state of mind. It may have literally driven him back to the drink and drugs which he knew would unleash ‘the monster’.
“Having heard all the evidence in this case and all the supporting evidence of the incidents of violence, we suggest that there is no doubt that Mr Depp regularly and systematically abused his wife.
“The characterisation that he is a wife beater is entirely truthful.”
Mr Depp’s barrister David Sherborne will make closing submissions on behalf of the actor on Tuesday.
Johnny Depp identified 'the monster' of drugs long before Ms Heard did
Sasha Wass continued: “Contrary to the experience of Hunter S Thompson, drugs and insanity were not working for him (Mr Depp).
“They were destroying his life, his career and his health and he identified ‘the monster’ long before Ms Heard did.
“Mr Depp believed he could find himself stability with Ms Heard… she was supportive and indicated a dedication to save him from himself and his demons, but he grew to hate her for her protectiveness.
“He grew to resent her for telling him how he could kick his addiction, telling him how he could banish ‘the monster’.
“Mr Depp has spent his entire adult life doing exactly what he wanted and he was not about to answer to a woman at this stage in his life.”
Johnny Depp spent his life surrounded by clique of 'ageing, male rabble rousers'
Finishing her closing submissions, Sasha Wass QC said: “At the heart of Mr Depp’s problem are two conflicting forces: his love of the drugs culture and his aspiration to be the Southern gentleman with a young beautiful wife.
“On the one hand, Mr Depp is proud of the influence of Hunter S Thompson, who he quoted in court: ‘I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.’
“He mourned his life muse’s suicide spending the three million dollars sending his ashes into space.
“He has spent his life surrounded by a clique of ageing, male rabble rousers with alcohol and drugs shared together.”
Ms Wass said that, by the time Mr Depp turned 50, “the insanity had taken its toll”.
Sasha Wass told the court “from the moment Ms Heard petitioned for divorce and for a restraining order, the full brute force of Mr Depp and his PR machine was engaged”
She said: “Reports appeared in the press suggesting that she was a gold digger. Mr Depp personally set out to damage her career.”
Ms Wass said that after Johnny Depp sent a text to his sister saying “I want her replaced on that WB film” – a reference to the Warner Brothers film Aquaman – “a petition garnered the support of 400,000 people to have Ms Heard removed from the film”.
The barrister also read aloud a text, previously heard by the court, in which Mr Depp says of Ms Heard: “She’s begging for global humiliation. She’s going to get it.”
The message sent on August 16, the day after the couple’s divorce settlement, read: “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.”
Ms Wass said: “This is the Southern gentleman.”
Police 'exaggerated the length of their attendance' following an incident in 2016, says Sun lawyer
Sasha Wass QC said Ms Saenz – one of the two LAPD officers who attended the apartment on May 21 2016 – said they had been in the penthouse for between 30 and 60 minutes, but that CCTV showed they had only been there for about 15 minutes.
The barrister said: “The police have exaggerated the length of their attendance because of the negligent way in which they dealt with an allegation of domestic violence.”
Ms Wass said that the two officers were called to give a deposition in the US two months later and were faced with “a choice: either admitting their negligence or saying that there was nothing to report and there was no damage and the course that they took was the latter”.
She added: “If the claimant’s suggestion of a hoax or a charade had any merit whatsoever, it makes no sense that Ms Heard refused to make a complaint to the police.
“This was her big opportunity, this would have been the denouement of her hoax: to say that police have come and she can finally make the complaint and put the hoax into operation and activate the insurance policy, whatever it was.
“But she said, as so many victims of domestic violence do… that she would not implicate her husband to the police.”
Sasha Wass QC moves on to the last of the 14 alleged incidents, on May 21 2016
She said Mr Depp “had recently lost a substantial amount of money, he had lost his mother and his marriage was on the rocks”.
But, Ms Wass said, Mr Depp arrived at the couple’s apartment at the Eastern Columbia Building in Los Angeles “drunk and he, instead of discussing the death of his mother or his financial loss or the state of his marriage, Mr Depp immediately launched into the subject of the faeces Ms Vargas found in the bed”.
The barrister continued that, after Mr Depp was later “ushered” out of the apartment by his security team, the actor “committed a variety of acts of damage”.
Ms Wass told the court that Raquel Pennington’s then fiance Josh Drew’s evidence was that he “pointed it out to the police” when they arrived at the apartment later that night, but that “the police did not follow the correct procedures and made no record of the damage in this case”.
Sasha Wass said that, on April 22 2016, Johnny Depp’s housekeeper “found faeces on the bed which she believed were human”
The barrister continued: “The suggestion that Ms Heard would defecate in her own bed, knowing that Ms Vargas would find it, is patently absurd.”
She referred to an October 2013 text by Mr Depp to his then assistant Stephen Deuters, asking him to “defecate outside the bedroom and pretend that it was as a result of the dog, Boo” – which Ms Wass said was “an echo” of the now-infamous “defecation incident”.
Mr Justice Nicol intervened to say: “The evidence about this faeces was pretty dramatic, but does it really go to any issue in this case?”
Ms Wass replied: “Not all, except when we come to the May 21 (2016 incident), this was something that was the cause of the argument.”
The judge then said: “I’m struggling at the moment to find why I would have to make a decision as to who defecated in this bed.”