Petition for re-appeal in Johnny Depp's UK libel case against The Sun amasses over 53K signatures 

A Change.org petition to allow Johnny Depp to re-appeal his UK libel lawsuit against The Sun has appeared online. This comes after the 58-year-old’s US defamation trial win against his ex-wife and actress Amber Heard. The online plea had amassed over 53,000 signatures at the time of writing this article.

Depp recently won against the Aquaman actress in the Fairfax, Virginia court. The actor sued her after she claimed in a 2018 The Washington Post op-ed piece that she was a victim of domestic abuse.

The Pirates of the Caribbean star had sued her for $50 million. Following the sensationalized six-week-long trial, the jury made a decision in favor of Johnny Depp with regards to all three counts.

Depp was to be rewarded $10 million in compensatory damages and five million dollars in punitive damages. The latter was changed to $350,000 as per Virginia state law. Amber Heard was to be given two million dollars as well, as she was defamed by Depp’s lawyer Adam Waldman, who called her abuse allegation a “hoax.”

Daniel Shensmith, a barrister in England and Wales, launched a petition which requested to re-appeal UK’s 2020 court ruling that Johnny Depp assaulted his wife.

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What is the Johnny Depp Change.org petition about?

In the petition, Daniel ShenSmith refers to Depp’s case in England where the actor sued the executive editor and publisher of The Sun after they published an article in which Depp was called a wife-beater, an allegation which Depp continues to deny.

ShenSmith calls himself the “Blackbelt Barrister” on social media. In the petition, he wrote:

“Following the jury trial in Johnny Depp v Amber Heard in the United States (John C. Depp, II v. Amber Laura Heard (CL–2019–2911), the jury returned the unanimous verdict that Amber Heard defamed Johnny Depp in her statements of the alleged abuse and, therefore, that the alleged abuse did not occur.”

He highlighted the glaring difference with the UK judgement, which was “incompatible as a matter of natural justice.”

In the petition, the barrister listed several reasons why a re-appeal must be brought into action. He stated that there was evidence that proved inconsistent in both trials. He also detailed that there were faults in the complete disclosure of evidence.

The petition titled “Re-open Appeal (UK) of Johnny Depp defamation case, following the unanimous US Jury Verdict” aims to amass over 75,000 signatures.

A similar petition appeared on the UK Parliament website, created by writer PJ Blackmoore. In the same, he demanded:

“I've started a petition to: 1) Review Judge Andrew Nicol for misconduct during the trial of #JohnnyDepp vs The Sun. 2) Investigate perjury accusations against #AmberHeard. 3) Allow #Depp to appeal the ruling”

Last year, the British court refused Depp's appeal to the judge’s ruling as he had “no real prospect of success.” Court Appeal Judges James Dingemans and Nicholas Underhill argued that the earlier hearing was “full and fair.”

Depp’s lawyers argued otherwise. They claimed that he had not received a fair hearing as Amber Heard was an unreliable witness because she had not kept her promise to donate her divorce settlement of seven million dollars to charity.