Edel Coffey: Hard to know who to feel more sorry for in Johnny Depp and Amber Heard case
Johnny Depp and Amber Heard
It’s hard to know who to feel more sorry for in the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation case, which came to an end on Wednesday night when the US jury presiding over the trial found in favour of Depp. Depp said the jury had given him his life back, while Heard said she was "heartbroken that the mountain of evidence still was not enough to stand up to the disproportionate power, influence and sway of my ex-husband" and that the verdict had set back the clock on violence against women.
The official starting point of this public battle between Depp and Heard was December 2018, when Heard wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post referring to herself as a "public figure representing domestic abuse". This is the defamation for which Depp was suing Heard for $50m. Heard was counter-suing him for $100m, claiming his lawyer had smeared her by referring to her accusations as a ‘hoax’. The Virginia jury decided Depp had been defamed and awarded him $15m, while Heard got $2m in damages for her counter-claim.
