Johnny Depp ’s lawyers introduced new video evidence from an “anonymous source” which they claim shows Amber Heard had “attacked” her sister, the High Court heard.
The American actor, 57, is suing News Group Newspapers (NGN), publisher of The Sun, for an article they ran in 2018 branding the star “a wife beater” – an allegation he strenuously denies.
During the third week of the libel case, Heard and her sister Whitney Henriquez gave evidence against Depp who they claimed was violent towards Heard on numerous occasions.
According to Deadline.com, during the hearing on Friday, Depp’s barrister David Sherborne told the court they had received a clip from a “confidential source” on Thursday night after Henriquez gave evidence earlier in the day, stating her sibling had never attacked her.
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Henrique gave evidence, claiming she saw Depp punch Heard “really hard in the head … multiple times” in Los Angeles in March 2015.
Henriquez said that Heard punched Depp on that occasion, but only did so “in my defence” because she claimed her sister thought Depp was going to push her down the stairs.
Sherborne then claimed to the court that Henriquez had “tailored” her evidence “to meet her sister’s evidence”.
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Sherborne told Justice Nicol: “After she [Ms Henriquez] gave evidence yesterday, one of our team was contacted by an individual, on the basis of being kept confidential.
“We were contacted to explain that Ms Amber Heard had a history of violence and attacking people and this video, which was attached, of her sister Whitney [Henriquez] was taken shortly after Amber Heard had attacked her and Ms Whitney [Henriquez] was filmed with people commenting on the bruises on her face and body.”
He continued: ” In the context of the attack, what I will call ‘the stairs incident’, and the evidence we say of the attack by Ms Amber Heard on Mr Depp, Ms Whitney [Henriquez] you will recall protested that it was only in self-defence and it is the one physical attack that Ms Amber Heard admits to.”
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Sherborne explained that Henriquez’s evidence about the altercation in March 2015 is “the only occasion on which any other human being is supposed to have witnessed” Depp being violent towards Heard.
He added: “The reliability of Ms Whitney [Henriquez] is critical.”
Sherborne told the court: “We are entitled to put [allegations of] violence to Ms Whitney [Henriquez] … we want to play the video tape to her and ask her about the incident in which Ms Amber Heard attacked her.”
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk