The British Court of Appeals has refused to accept an appeal filed by the American actor Johnny Depp (57) against the November 2020 ruling in which he was accused of having mistreated his ex-wife Amber Heard, 34, and that he was a violent person.
Judge Nicholas Underhill has specified that "the additional evidence" that Johnny Depp presented to justify the appeal has not been admitted and has indicated that it "had no prospect of success" and therefore there is no reason to proceed.
Johnny Depp wanted to appeal the ruling issued on November 2 by the Superior Court, which rejected his lawsuit for libel against
The Sun
newspaper
, which had accused him in an article in 2018 of being "a wife abuser" and detailed various alleged violent incidents against actress Amber Heard.
At the end of November Depp already tried to appeal the appeal, but the same judge who handed down the sentence in November denied him permission to appeal: "I do not consider that the proposed grounds for appeal have a reasonable prospect of success," he said then, to continue: "The grounds for appeal suggest that I made an error of principle or law, and there is no other compelling reason why permission to appeal should be granted."
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Then, Judge Nicol gave the actor until December 7 to be able to go to this Court of Appeal, which is the one that has now again ruled that there is no possibility of appeal and that therefore the sentence against Depp is final .
A sentence by which the judge determined that Depp came to assault Heard a dozen times and made her "fear for her life" up to three times.
Among them, a very serious one that the actress came to call a "three-day hostage situation" in Australia in March 2015. Nicol discovered that Heard also feared for his life during several incidents in Southeast Asia in August 2015 and again in Los Angeles (California) in December of the same year.
A trial that, although it put Deppy and Heard on the benches, was actually against The Sun newspaper, which Depp sued for calling him an abuser, but which in the end left a trail of harsh and dirty revelations about the couple.
With the sentence, the judge also ordered the actor to make an initial payment to the editor of the British newspaper of almost 630,000 euros for the fees.
Depp's lawyers were clear from the start that Nicol's sentence in early November was not going to stop there.
His attorney, Jenny Afia, of the Schillings law firm, explained after the Superior Court ruling that it was "as perverse as it is disconcerting."
"The ruling is so flawed that it would be ridiculous for Mr. Depp not to appeal this decision," Afia said.
However, Amberd Heard's US attorney, Elaine Charlson Bredehoft, commented: “For those of us present at the London High Court trial, this decision and sentencing come as no surprise.
Very soon, we will present even more voluminous tests in the United States. "
These tests have not yet arrived, but what is set is the date of a new trial, and that between Depp and Heard.
It will be in the state of Virginia where they will have a new trial, because it was there that Depp sued his ex-wife for defamation and where he asks for 50 million dollars (about 42 million euros) in damages due to an article that she published in
The Washington Post
newspaper
where she spoke of the abuse and aggression suffered by the protagonist of
Pirates of the Caribbean
.
Faced with Depp's legal complaints, Heard responded with a millionaire counterclaim, asking for double that amount and claiming that his interpreter orchestrated a smear campaign against him.
We will still have to wait a few months, but that other legal battle, which will also leave headlines and accusations, will arrive at the end of 2021.