Amber Heard's Lawyer Says 'Significant Evidence Was Suppressed' In Defamation Trial
Topics: Johnny Depp, Celebrity
Emma Guinness
Featured Image Credit: IMAGE CREDIT: ALAMY/NBC
Topics: Johnny Depp, Celebrity
Johnny Depp might have won his defamation trial, but now Amber Heard's lawyer has said ‘significant evidence was suppressed' during the case.
Heard, 36, was found to have defamed the Pirates of the Caribbean star, 58, in a 2018 op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post about domestic abuse.
Discussing the result on the Today show, her lawyer Elaine Bredehoft defended the Aquaman actress, who won one of her counterclaims against the actor.
Namely, that his lawyer, Adam Waldman, had defamed her by describing her allegations as a ‘hoax’.
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Speaking on the show, Bredehoft explained why she thinks the actor lost his case against The Sun for describing him as a 'wife-beater'.
“Really what happened here is it’s a tale of two trials. Johnny Depp brought a suit in the UK for the same case,” she said.
“The burden of proof was easier for him there, The Sun had to actually prove that it was true.
“And the court found there - and we weren’t allowed to tell the jury this - but the court found that Mr Depp had committed at least 12 acts of domestic violence, including sexual violence against Amber.”
Heard’s lawyer said the UK trial taught Depp's team to 'demonise Amber and suppress the evidence.'
“We had an enormous amount of evidence that was suppressed in this case that was in the UK case. In the UK case when it came in, Amber won and Mr Depp lost," she said.
The evidence in question went back to 2012 - before the couple were married - and included notes from Amber’s therapist about her allegations against the actor.
A number of texts were also not included as evidence.
She said: “We had a significant amount of texts, including from M. Depp’s assistants, saying ‘When I told him he kicked you, he cried, he is so sorry'. That didn’t come in.”
Bredehoft also argued that the jury was influenced by the reaction to the trial on social media, which was significantly in favour of Depp.
“They went home every night," she said. "They have families. The families are on social media. We had a 10-day break in the middle because of the judicial conference. There’s no way they couldn’t have been influenced by it.”
The New Yorker reports that a man was allowed to stay on the jury despite receiving texts labelling Heard as ‘psychotic’.
Heard said after the verdict that she was 'heartbroken' by the result, reports the Independent.
Her lawyer added that she will be appealing the verdict, which was reached after three days of deliberation.
“She has some excellent grounds for it,” Bredehoft said.