Johnny Depp’s lawyers have begun an appeal against a ruling in the UK High Court which rejected his libel lawsuit against The Sun newspaper and its Executive Editor Dan Wootton.
Andrew Caldecott QC, representing Depp, said they had fresh evidence which they believed undermined Amber Heard as a key witness for NGN.
He claimed this evidence suggested Heard had lied about donating her £5 million (US$7 million) divorce settlement from Depp to a number of charities, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a charity which does a lot of work with domestic violence victims.
Depp’s lawyers are seeking permission to appeal from Lord Justice Underhill, Vice President of the Court of Appeal, sitting with Lord Justice Dingemans, at a hearing on Thursday, 18 March.
In his skeleton argument Mr Caldecott said the libel trial judge, Mr Justice Andrew Nicol accepted Ms Heard’s evidence “that she had given that sum [i.e. $7m] away to charity.”
But Mr Caldecott claimed she had not "honoured that pledge."
He said: "A pledge is not the same as giving money. The fact that the divorce settlement was made in instalments, which were completed by 1 st February 2018, does not explain why Ms Heard would only 'pledge' to the ACLU to give money over 10 years or have any impact on her failure to honour that pledge."
During the hearing Mr Caldecott referred to Ms Heard’s statement that: “I don’t want to keep a dime of his money because of the way he treated me.”
He said that “implied revulsion” and he said if the judge accepted she had given away her entire divorce settlement it “tips the scales” and makes her appear to be a “virtuous person” and a “victim.”
Adam Wolanski QC, representing NGN, said in his skeleton argument: "This very experienced judge's task was to assess whether, on the balance of probabilities, the Respondents had proved their articles were substantially true. He concluded after conducting a painstaking analysis of the evidence that the Respondents had proved 12 of the 14 pleaded assaults perpetrated by Mr Depp on Ms Heard, and the plea of substantial truth was therefore made out. It is apparent from the detailed judgment that there is no basis to conclude that the judge failed to examine the evidence or provide reasons for his findings."
In April 2018 Mr Wootton wrote an article in The Sun which claimed Depp had beaten his actress wife Amber Heard.
Depp sued The Sun’s owners and the author of the article, claiming it wrongly portrayed him as being guilty of domestic violence.
Depp, 57, has always denied the allegations, which were made during the couple’s 2016 divorce but he lost a defamation lawsuit against NGN - owned by Rupert Murdoch - and was ordered to pay their costs.
In Mr Justice Andrew Nicol’s ruling he said The Sun had acted fairly and had not acted out of "malice" and he said he did not accept the characterisation of Amber Heard as "nothing more than a gold-digger."
But at the Court of Appeal Mr Caldecott suggested the judge had been influenced by thinking she had given away her entire divorce settlement.
In his skeleton argument Mr Caldecott said: “Ms Heard’s fabrication of evidence which enhanced her own credit can be said for that reason to make the potential for injustice the greater.”
The hearing continues.