To be concerned that the Depp/Heard trial has put off genuine DV victims from coming forward?

[PetraBP]

The Depp/Heard trial was troubling to me.

On the one hand, people do sometimes make false allegations, especially after relationship breakups.

On the other hand, dragging someone to court for alleging domestic violence might deter some women from reporting it.

Assuming the court got it right and Depp was not a perpetrator, how could he have handled the situation so that it would not put domestic violence victims off coming forward for fear of being sued?

Worrying all round.

I think both Amber & Johnny are abusive people. Neither of them are nice people. The trial should never have been televised. It's like bear baiting. Just sick. I wish everyone would stop giving them so much attention.

He's disgusting.

It was horrific. YANBU

His any person can "support" Depp after those text messages,his recorded admissions and behaviour, photographed destruction is beyond me.

The message was - if you have been abused you'd better be injured. You'd better be injured enough . You'd better have taken a good photo. You'd better never have smile again. You'd better never have fought back.

Remember Gabby Petito - her boyfriend had scratches on his face and the police thought SHE was the aggressor. Strangulation doesn't cause injuries, often. Traumatic brain injuries aren't always visible on the outside. Sexual violence occurs in private. There are no witnesses. Gabby was the one that ended up murdered.

The fact that it was all televised and the social media humiliation was permitted was just awful. Humanity at its worst.

The UK judge ruled that he is correctly described as a wife beater. He has not been "cleared".

That’s two different things though. Believing her (and I do) is the starting point to a trial. Believing that just because she’s a woman she must be a saint is really, really odd.

I think this "assumption " is also supported by the fact that male violence against women and misogyny in general is generally staggeringly higher than the other way round. So I think on balance more women will be victims. The murder rate of women at the hands of a partner in this country is shocking (2 a week if I recall correctly?) yet it will never get the same level of outrage of a situation like Heard V Depp.

It's all quite depressing

kareningalasmith.com/counting-dead-women/

wecantconsenttothis.uk

Thanks Trip

For every three victims of domestic abuse, two will be female, one will be male, so I've read. That's not what I'd call a massive difference. Of course the figure for males would be higher if more of them were to come forward. It's widely suspected that a large number of them won't, of course.

As an aside, the outrage I've seen against Heard has come mostly from women. All my female friends took sides against AH and for Depp. All of them self-identify as feminists, too. If misogyny is involved in a big way re the treatment of Heard during that trial, then I think we've got to accept that a lot of it came from women.

As for the men I know - assuming they expressed any interest - the trial was more revelatory than anything else. A really intriguing sort of comment that I heard was 'Oh, right - well what she did there was nutty. But ... so, that's domestic abuse, is it? I guess it is.' (or similar). That hints at one other reason why men might not come forward: they don't even see what's happening in their relationship as abusive towards themselves. That frame of reference, with all its language, doesn't present itself to their minds.

Let's examine your opening remark shall we?

1. It was a defamation case not a DV case
2. Depp was found to be a domestic abuser in a UK court.
3. Victims don't need to be perfect people to be victims.
4. The actions Depp admitted to are absolutely abusive.
5. The language Depp used is abusive.
6. Drug & alcohol abuse was used in his defence & to attack her. So far so fucking normal. Courts don't like women who aren't Madonna's.

Stop the internalised misogyny crap about "genuine victims"

Amber Heard is a troubled woman. She's not a 'perfect' person or victim. She hit back, she shouted, she swore, she manipulated, she railed, she left.

He has taken her to court for defamation twice.

She's tried to move on. He talked about giving her global humiliation. He succeeded.

Abusers gonna abuse.

Depp is scum elevated to rock star status by idiots that don't understand domestic abuse & that it is about power and control & coercion & that yiu can love someone & want to be with them even as they hurt you.

My argument would be: if you want more men to come forward, which everyone does, make that the focus of your attention. I’m so sick of seeing variations of ‘what about the men?’ when talking specifically about abuse women suffer. I never see it in child abuse cases. I never see it in animal abuse cases. I never, ever see it when a very famous man is accused of abuse, or when little boys are being told to man up or when they’re being told they can’t wear pink. Toxic masculinity is the reason men don’t come forward, not Amber Heard.

There seems to be a clear divide on MN in relation to this matter. The divide is clearly a case of who actually watched the trial and who didn’t watch it!

My son was the victim of domestic /psychological abuse in his teens .His girlfriend was responsible .I went from Social Services , the police , his school, her parents , mediation and finally a lawyer to help him .Nobody listened , nobody helped .Why doesn't he 'man up' was what I frequently heard .It was so traumatising for our whole family and I will never ever forgive her for what she did to my lovely boy .But that nobody helped will stay with me forever .I am glad that there is at long last light shone on this very important issue , that men both young and old can be abused by their female partners. It leaves as many scars and trauma for men as it does for women but at least now it will be taken seriously especially when young boys and men are being abused

I don’t understand how anyone can hear the phrase ‘why doesn’t he man up’ and think the root cause of that is women. It’s toxic masculinity, and it’s doing a lot more damage to men than women are.

Agatha Christie yes, dropped from Harry Potter Fantastic Beasts.

So his career wasn’t ruined then.

It is only a setback for those who make serious allegations that prove to be not credible once witness testimony and corresponding evidence is examined.

So his career wasn’t ruined.

It never is.

Again all this came up at the trial (the impact on both JD and AH carers) which you must not have watched otherwise you would know!

Honestly, they were both clearly abusive and the marriage was toxic. The problem with that is that there is no 'victim' and 'abuser', or rather that both of them are individually abuser and victim.
It worries me though that people are presenting this as a reason abuse victims shouldn't come forward. A jury decided an outcome based on days and days of evidence. The alternative is we just send all men accussed of abuse to prison and skip the trial by a jury of peers based on evidence presented to them. I hope nobody is suggesting that?

For every three victims of domestic abuse, two will be female, one will be male, so I've read

a poster on a similar thread called @Royalcorgi had an article that debunked some of the statistics

it was very interesting, the only bits I remember is that the stats don’t include sexual abuse or rape, men are quicker to report than women and that one instance counts as abuse but so do lots of instances. So a woman hitting her husband once is treated the same as her husband hitting her over years

Why on earth would anyone suggest that?

It was hugely weakened. I also looked and the Agatha Christie film came out in 2017 before the Op-Ed and U.K. trial. Being dropped from Fantastic Beasts made it clear that no big movie franchise would employ him.

You have no evidence that it was hugely weakened, his Wikipedia shows five films he’s been involved in since the first allegations. Not to mention his royalties from PotC. Maybe the new assault case will affect his career, who knows? Doubt it though.

@Pumperthepumper I can tell by your comments that you never watched the trial, I would have a lot more respect of your opinions if you had watched it, and felt that AH was the abused but you haven’t so your opinion is based on ignorance and not fact so it unfortunately doesn’t really mean anything. I would love for you to watch the trial, it is all over YouTube, and then come back and tell us your opinions on it. I also had your negative options on JD until I watched the proceedings 😊