Johnny Depp has lost an attempt to overturn a high court ruling that said he assaulted and abused his ex-wife Amber Heard.
Over the summer, the judge dismissed Depp’s libel claim against The Sun’s publisher, which dubbed him a “wife beater” in an April 2018 article. The judge ruled that the statement was “substantially true,” and that the 57-year-old assaulted the 34-year-old Heard on a dozen occasions.
Part of Depp’s argument relied on claims that Heard did not give away her $7 million divorce settlement, as she said she would.
Lord Justice Underhill said: “We do not accept that there is any ground for believing that the judge may have been influenced by any such general perception as Mr Caldecott relies on. In the first place, he does not refer to her charitable donation at all in the context of his central findings. On the contrary, he only mentions it in a very particular context … and after he had already reached his conclusions in relation to the 14 incidents.”
He concluded: “We refuse Mr Depp’s application to admit further evidence in support of his proposed appeal and we conclude that the appeal has no real prospect of success and that there is no other compelling reason for it to be heard. We accordingly refuse permission to appeal.”
A spokesperson for Heard said: “We are pleased – but by no means surprised – by the court’s denial of Mr Depp’s application for an appeal. The evidence presented in the UK case was overwhelming and undeniable.”