Johnny Depp has been denied the chance to appeal his failed libel case against The Sun newspaper.
Johnny Depp
The 57-year-old actor had taken action against the British publication after they branded him a wife beater who had assaulted then-spouse Amber Heard, but a judge ruled in favour of the newspaper last November and had his defamation accusation was thrown out.
And now, the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' star - who has repeatedly denied allegations he attacked his ex-wife - has been told by the High Court that he cannot pursue an application to appeal, despite his lawyers claiming earlier this month that they had "fresh evidence" about the 'Danish Girl' actress and accused her of lying about donating all of her $7 million divorce settlement to charity.
However, Court of Appeal judges said on Thursday (24.03.21) the original hearing was "full and fair" and the trial judge, Justice Andrew Nicol, had given "thorough reasons for his conclusions".
Announcing the ruling at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Lord Justice Underhill said: "It is not easy to persuade this court to overturn the findings of a trial judge on purely factual questions.
“We do not believe that there is a real prospect of it being prepared to do so in this case.
“The hearing before Nicol J was full and fair, and he gave thorough reasons for his conclusions which have not been shown even arguably to be vitiated by any error of approach or mistake of law...
“We refuse Mr Depp’s application to admit further evidence in support of his proposed appeal and we conclude that the appeal has no real prospect of success and that there is no other compelling reason for it to be heard. We accordingly refuse permission to appeal.”
The 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' actor - who was asked to step down from playing Gellert Grindelwald in the wizarding franchise days after the original ruling was made - is also involved in a separate libel dispute in the US.
That case stems from a 2018 Washington Post opinion piece written by Amber, in which she spoke about domestic abuse, although she didn't mention the 'Black Mass' actor by name.
A hearing in that matter was due to take place in May but it has now been pushed back to April 2022.
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