Johnny Depp blocked from appealing Sun libel case and must pay paper £630,000
Johnny Depp has been blocked from appealing against a High Court ruling which deemed that he had assaulted his ex-wife Amber Heard.
The Hollywood A-lister will also be forced to pay the Sun nearly £630,000 in legal costs for his failed libel action against the paper.
The film star brought the case against the paper after a column alluded to “overwhelming evidence” that he had attacked Heard during their relationship.
After a three week trial, Mr Justice Nicol ruled that Depp had violently abused Heard 12 times over the course of their relationship.
At the time, Depp said the judgement was “as perverse as it was bewildering” and said he would appeal the judgement.
Now it has been revealed that Nicol has dismissed the appeal on the grounds that it does not have a reasonable chance of success.
In his ruling, which was given last week but made public today, he wrote:
“The findings of fact by a first instance tribunal (particularly one, such as myself, who has heard oral evidence) are rarely open to challenge on appeal.
“In any event, I do not consider that the proposed grounds of appeal have a reasonable prospect of success (and that is also the case so far as the grounds of appeal suggest that I erred in principle or in law) and there is not some other compelling reason why permission to appeal should be granted.”
As a result, Depp will have to pay the Sun £520,000 by 7 December, and an additional £108,235 by 22 January.
The actor has until 7 December to appeal directly to the Court of Appeal to overturn the ruling.