I have now read a lot of the witness statements and transcripts. It is clear that the witnesses who appeared in court for NGN are pretty much all the witnesses they have. Depp's case, however, is supported by several witnesses who did not appear in court. For example, whilst only one police officer gave evidence in court (via video link), there is evidence from two officers, one of whom specialises in domestic violence. They attended an apartment used by Depp and Heard twice in one evening. They are clear that they did not see the extensive damage to the apartment alleged by Heard and her friends (who say the officers were specifically shown the damage), nor did they see the alleged injuries to Heard. NGN argues that they are lying to cover up their own incompetence.
Also lying, according to NGN, are a number of doctors and nurses who made notes showing that Heard has a problem with substance abuse (which she denies) and that conflicted with Heard's evidence in various other ways.
Other liars apparently include concierges at an apartment block where Depp and Heard stayed for a while and many others.
Then we have the interesting case of Savannah Mcmillam. Heard says she was a friend. Depp says she was an employee - Heard's assistant. If Depp is right, Mcmillam entered the US illegally. It appears Homeland Security were notified of this prompting a letter to Homeland Security, signed by Heard, stating that Mcmillam was a friend and not an employee. Heard maintains that Mcmillam wrote this letter and she merely signed it, despite the fact that the letter contains two different spellings of Mcmillam's name, both of them incorrect, along with other features that make it unlikely Mcmillam wrote it. There is also clear evidence from others that Mcmillam was employed as Heard's assistant. Whilst not directly relevant to the allegations, this suggests Heard has an interesting relationship with the truth.
There is a huge contrast between Depp's evidence and Heard's. When Depp is challenged with documentary evidence he is happy to admit his recollection must be wrong. Heard, however, is never wrong. If the documentary evidence is inconsistent with her story, either the documents are wrong or her story changes in an attempt to encompass the evidence.
Heard's story has repeatedly changed and been embellished. For example, her allegation that Depp pushed Kate Moss down some stairs did not appear in any of her witness statements. There are many other examples of new allegations being added and existing allegations embellished under cross-examination.
The evidence from her friends is simply reporting what she said so is useless as corroboration. The only real corroboration is her sister's evidence and photographs taken when she got a restraining order against Depp (note that this was an ex parte application, so she got the order based purely on her own testimony with Depp playing no part in proceedings). I suspect the incident allegedly witnessed by Heard's sister is the one NGN hope the judge will find as proven, hence their attempt to argue that one incident is enough to find in their favour (which I don't think is correct). However, her sister's evidence under oath was different from that in her witness statements and was clearly tailored to match the way Heard's story had changed. The photos are contradicted by other photos taken between the alleged assault and the court hearing which show no injuries. Also contradicting the photos are notes from a qualified nurse who examined her, also finding no injuries.
This hasn't received any press coverage as far as I can see but I note that Heard used Depp's phone to send a text to her friends saying, "I am Amber and I get what I want".
Given that recordings Heard made clearly show her admitting hitting Depp and criticising him for running away, I am certain that Heard abused Depp physically and probably also in other ways.
I cannot say for certain that Depp never hit Heard but, based on the evidence, my view is that he didn't.
I remain of the view that NGN will lose. I may be missing something as I haven't seen the full trial bundles (which sound like they are massive - my sympathy to the judge who has to wade through it all) but, based on what was heard in court, I don't understand why NGN thought they had any chance of defending their article.