Johnny Depp’s former partners Vanessa Paradis and Winona Ryder will now not appear at the High Court in London to support his sensational libel claim against a newspaper over an article that labelled him a ‘wife beater’.
Depp, 57, is suing The Sun publisher News Group Newspapers (NGN) and its executive editor over an April 2018 article which alleged he was violent towards ex-wife Amber Heard, 34, during their tumultuous relationship.
Actress Paradis, who was in a relationship with Depp for more than 14 years and had two children with him, had been expected to give evidence in support of the Pirates Of The Caribbean star’s case over a videolink today.
But the court was told today that there was no need for her – or another ex-partner, actress Ryder – to give evidence because Depp’s claim that he has never hit a woman was only tested by the defence regarding Heard.
At an earlier preliminary hearing in the case, part of 47-year-old Paradis’s witness statement said: ‘I have known Johnny for more than 25 years. We’ve been partners for 14 years and we raised our two children together.
‘Through all these years I’ve known Johnny to be a kind, attentive, generous, and non-violent person and father.’ She added: ‘He was never violent or abusive to me.’
This morning, Depp’s barrister David Sherborne told the court the trial timetable has been revised and that the actor’s legal team have decided they do not need to call actresses Winona Ryder and Vanessa Paradis.
Mr Sherborne said it was because the Sun’s case is that Depp wasn’t violent to other partners but was to Heard, adding: ‘There is no need to reschedule those witnesses, much as it would have been a pleasure to have them here.’
Witnesses will instead today include Starling Jenkins and Alejandro Romero, who worked at the Eastern Columbia Buildings in LA where Heard and Depp lived.
Yesterday, Heard’s former personal assistant accused the actress of ‘twisting’ her own account of a machete-point rape for ‘her own use’, in explosive evidence on the seventh day of Depp’s libel claim.
Johnny Depp (left) and Amber Heard (right) arrive at the Royal Courts of Justice in London today for the libel trial to continue
Depp is assisted into the High Court by his security team this morning for his libel claim against The Sun to continue
Amber Heard (centre) arrives at the High Court today with her girlfriend Bianca Butti (left) and sister Whitney Heard (right)
Appearing by videolink from Los Angeles on Wednesday, Kate James claimed Heard, 34, had ‘stolen’ her story of being ‘violently raped’ in Brazil almost three decades ago.
In her witness statement, Ms James said she discovered the Aquaman actress had ‘stolen my sexual violence conversation with her and twisted it into her own story to benefit herself’.
She added: ‘This of course caused me extreme distress and outrage that she would dare to attempt to use the most harrowing experience of my life as her own narrative.’ Ms James said she was giving evidence because she took ‘offence’ at Heard’s actions.
NGN’s barrister Sasha Wass QC suggested Ms James had been ‘influenced’ by Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas actor Depp and his associates and ‘encouraged’ to give ‘vicious evidence’ against Heard.
Ms James replied: ‘I’m here for my own reasons … I’m a sexual violence survivor and that’s very, very serious to take that stance if you are not one and I am one. That’s the reason I’m here, because I take offence.’
A woman films Johnny Depp arriving at the High Court in London this morning as legal proceedings in the capital continue
Depp waves to the photographers outside the High Court this morning (left), while his ex-wife Heard also arrives (right)
Ms James, who worked for Heard between 2012 and 2015, said her former employer would send a ‘barrage of drunk text messages between the hours of two and four in the morning … on an almost daily basis’, describing the messages as ‘abusive’.
She accused Heard of deleting all the ‘abusive’ texts after the actress terminated her employment, adding: ‘She saved the ones that weren’t.’
In her statement, Ms James said Heard felt she was ‘above the law’, and claimed she ‘did not care about throwing anyone under the bus, if it meant saving her own skin’.
Heard asked her in September 2014 to send a letter the actress had drafted to Homeland Security officials in the US about a woman named Savannah McMillan, who had been hired to work as a set assistant, Ms James claimed.
According to Ms James, Heard said in the letter: ‘Savannah McMillan is a personal friend and, to my knowledge, has never worked unlawfully or otherwise in the United States. Or for me.’
Johnny Depp and his former partner Vanessa Paradis in London on October 17, 2004. Paradis will now no longer appear at the court today via videolink in support of Depp’s libel claim against a newspaper over an article that labelled him a ‘wife beater’
Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder in Los Angeles in September 1990. Ryder had been due to give evidence via videolink
Johnny Depp being taken to hospital with a severed finger, following the incident in Australia in March 2015
Depp, 57, and Heard, 34, met on the set of the 2011 comedy ‘The Rum Diary’ and married in Los Angeles in February 2015. They are pictured at the film’s premiere in London in November 2011
Ms James said in her statement that Heard ‘knew this to be untrue’ and ‘Amber was therefore wilfully lying to the US immigration department’.
She also claimed Heard ‘deliberately smuggled’ two Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo, into Australia illegally in April 2015.
The High Court in London earlier heard evidence from Kevin Murphy, Depp’s former estate manager, who claimed Heard asked him to contact Ms James and ask her to ‘lie under oath’ to an Australian court.
Mr Murphy said the actress also ‘demanded’ he make a false statement about the animals being ‘smuggled’ into the country, and told him: ‘I wouldn’t want you to have a problem with your job.’
In October 2015, Heard faced criminal proceedings in Australia for taking the couple’s two dogs into the country illegally. She and Depp later recorded a now infamous video, which was played to the court, apologising for doing so.
Amber Heard photographed Johnny Depp with ice cream spilled on his legs during a private flight from Boston to Los Angeles in May 2014 before showing it to him the next day and saying: ‘Look at what you’ve become’, the court heard earlier this week
A man holding a placard in support of Depp stands outside the High Court in London this morning ahead of the latest hearing
The carnage in a home in Australia after Depp and Heard allegedly had a fight in 2015, which was released yesterday as part of Ben King’s evidence. The picture shows an undamaged phone handset, with Mr King insisting ‘ I did not see any phones which had been broken’, despite Heard’s claims that he smashed it against a wall and cut off his fingertip while attacking her
Depp is alleged to have trashed a penthouse in Los Angeles, California, which Heard used as a colossal closet
Photographs were issued by Heard’s legal team of her with injuries to her face around the time of the alleged attack on December 15, 2015, showing bruising across the bridge of her nose and under her eyes after Depp allegedly headbutted her
Mr Murphy said he lied under oath ‘because Amber wielded a lot of power and would have made my life miserable’.
He also gave evidence about the ‘defecation incident’, when faeces were found in the couple’s bed after Heard’s 30th birthday party in April 2016.
Ms Wass read a text from Heard to Mr Murphy in October 2014, when the actress said: ‘I’m worried she’s got brain damage. She can’t seem to predict or control when she uses the bathroom.
‘Last night she s**t ON Johnny while he was sleeping, like all over him. Not exaggerating.’
Mr Murphy said in his witness statement that, when he spoke to Depp in April 2016 about the ‘defecation incident’, the actor was ‘sullen and disgusted’.
Ms Wass read two text messages sent by Depp shortly after the incident, saying that in one, he wrote ‘my wife left a whopper poop on my bed’ and ‘then he says ‘Amber Turd”.
She said: ‘In fact, it appears from those texts that Depp found the subject quite amusing,’ to which Mr Murphy said he thought the actor was being ‘sarcastic’.
Mr Murphy was asked if Heard had told him the faeces in the bed was a ‘harmless prank’, and said: ‘She certainly did.’
Yesterday morning, Depp’s previous estate manager, Ben King, gave evidence that Depp and Heard ‘argued like schoolchildren’, with explosive rows starting from ‘banal beginnings’.
He claimed Heard was the ‘antagoniser’ in the relationship, often ‘goading’ and attempting to provoke the actor.
Mr King, who worked for the Hollywood star for three separate periods between 2014 and 2016, said he never saw Depp ‘be violent or unkind towards Heard, or indeed towards anyone else’.
In his first witness statement, Mr King said that in March 2015 he was summoned to the house the couple were renting in Australia, where he found a ‘significant amount of damage’ and discovered the actor’s severed fingertip on the floor of the bar area while cleaning up broken glass and debris.
Depp has been accused of subjecting Heard to a ‘three-day hostage situation’ and trashing the house during the Australia trip, which he denies.
His finger was severed during the stay, which he says was caused by Ms Heard throwing a vodka bottle at him, which she denies.
Yesterday, the court did not have time to hear from actress Ryder, who was engaged to Mr Depp in the 1990s, or Katherine Kendall, an actress and #MeToo advocate who claims she was ‘misquoted’ in The Sun’s article.
Depp is suing NGN and its executive editor Dan Wootton over the publication of an article headlined: ‘Gone Potty: How can JK Rowling be ‘genuinely happy’ casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?’.
His lawyers say the article bore the meaning there was ‘overwhelming evidence’ Depp assaulted Heard on a number of occasions and left her ‘in fear for her life’.
Heard claims that, during an incident in Australia, she was subjected to a ‘three-day hostage situation’ during which Depp drank to excess and took pills.
NGN is defending the article as true, and says Depp was ‘controlling and verbally and physically abusive towards Heard, particularly when he was under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs’.