LONDON (AP) — Johnny Depp lost his high-stakes libel case Monday against The Sun tabloid newspaper for labelling him a “wife beater,” as a British judge said he believed the actor had abused his ex-wife and that she frequently feared for her life. In a decision that has been cheered by campaigners against domestic abuse, Justice Andrew Nicol said the defendants had proved during the trial in London that their allegations against Depp were "substantially true.” Depp’s lawyers said they would appeal the decision. Over the course of nearly three weeks this summer, Nicol had heard lurid — and irreconcilable — accounts from Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard in which each accused the other of abuse. “I have found that the great majority of alleged assaults of Ms. Heard by Mr. Depp have been proved to the civil standard," Nicol wrote in his ruling. In one of the biggest English libel trials of the 21st century, Depp sued News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun, and the newspaper’s executive editor, Dan Wootton, over an April 2018 article that accused him of assaulting fellow actor Heard.

Source: Daily Sun November 02, 2020 10:54 UTC