Johnny Depp loses battle challenging 'wife beater' ruling

Actor Johnny Depp has failed in his attempt to challenge U.K. High Court ruling that he was 'violent to his former wife Amber Heard.'

Last year, Depp waged a three-week libel case against the publisher of The Sun newspaper over a 2018 article calling him a “wife beater.” Depp claimed that Heard’s allegations of domestic violence were “a choreographed hoax.” However, Judge Andrew Nicol found that Depp had been violent toward Heard on at least 12 occasions, and rejected Depp’s case.

Depp sought permission to appeal the ruling, claiming the judge had failed to assess the evidence properly and calling for a full re-trial. The actor’s legal team sought to introduce new evidence, which they claimed undermined Heard’s credibility as a witness.

Depp’s lawyer, Andrew Caldecott, said Heard told a “calculated and manipulative lie” in a pledge to donate her $7 million divorce settlement to charity, alleging the money has not been paid.

“Had the truth about the charity claim emerged at the trial, it would have materially affected the judge’s consideration of Ms. Heard’s evidence as a whole,” Caldecott said.

Lawyers for News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun, said the evidence could have been submitted during the original trial, and would not have had an impact on the outcome of the case.

“Given the wealth of evidence, it is plainly wrong to suggest that the information that Ms. Heard had not yet finished paying $7 million to charity would have made the slightest difference to the outcome of this case,” they said.

They claimed Heard plans to donate the money over 10 years.

Depp is fighting a separate libel battle in the U.S., where he is suing Heard personally over a 2018 Washington Post opinion piece in which she claimed to be a victim of domestic abuse, but did not mention Depp by name.

His $50 million U.S. case against Heard was recently delayed until April 2022.