The Assassination of Amber Heard

[DomesticatedZombie]

I hesitate to get involved in this topic - I've not followed the trial and I find the televising and subsequent media circus repugnant.

Unfortunately, it can and will have effects on how women are seen and treated, especially in dv cases, so I suppose in some ways we have no choice but to pay attention.

I thought this was a good article:

medium.com/@hannahxsummers/the-assassination-of-amber-heard-a2e861ad5ded

...and no, this isn't how justice should work.
They are being held to different standards. Misogyny in full effect.

I'm getting to the stage that I think the only people who should comment on this trial are those who've actually watched it.

It's not men vs women. Or male DV victims vs female. Or who is the most abused.

It's who is telling the truth. And that is based on evidence produced at the trial.

And people are capable of watching that and deciding for themselves.

Anyone who has an opinion without having seen it is just nailing their colours to whichever mast suits their viewpoint.

@BonnesVacances whilst I agree that people shouldn't be commenting on it, I think it's important for people to stand up and say how ridiculously unfair the trial has been so far in terms of how both people have been treated.

From day one Amber has been crucified not only by the media but by a huge majority of Depp fans on social media. Despite the fact he already lost the first case and most of the abuse has been admitted/evidenced he is being treated like a god with fans bowing down at his feet. Whereas Amber who has also been accused of abuse is getting hate/ death threats etc from every direction.

It worries me that after all the #metoo movements and such strides forward for women that people still seem to look more favourably on men in these situations.

Agree. And there will be huge swathes of people blindly supporting JD and attacking AH for daring to speak about him.

What makes it tricky is that there is so much evidence out there that disproves what she's saying. So it will be very difficult to separate out the rational views on the case with the ignorant and misogynistic.

Which is why the whole thing is so damaging to women and victims of DV.

What needs acknowledging though is that JD is on the receiving end of the anger about this because he is responsible for the court case. But we should look at the cause for the case (ie the op-ed), not how someone reacted to it.

It doesn't matter which party is male or female.

I can separate all those issues out. But I do recognise that the vast majority on social media with opinions on this case can't.

I think it is clear that Amber Heard has serious mental health problems rather than being an 'awful' person as so many posts suggest.

@BonnesVacances yes I completely agree. I also think that the vast majority of people commenting on it are just jumping on the band wagon and actually don't have a clue about the ins and outs of the case.
It's nice to be on a thread with polite debate for once!

Thanks domestic, this is the article I've needed to read.

The abuse of Amber by social media has been relentless and pushed I feel when I'm not seeking it; obviously algorithms are remembering what I've looked at. But I also feel when I've then actively sought pro Amber stuff, the algorithm isn't catching on (unless there's just not much.)

I had no interest till I began to realise the misogynistic slant taken.

There's a similarly shite slant against Megan and Harry at the moment; I set up a new non work non feminist twitter just to follow art stuff and for some reason have been pushed loads of anti Megan stuff.

Yesterday on trending there was a newspaper article laying out the worst of it, the bottle, and barely any likes or interaction.

Yes she's then been vile back, I can understand how angry shes been and it clearly became a toxic relationship. Which he's been able to use in his DARVO.

A lot if this started a long time ago. There were videos about her on YouTube, framing him as the wronged one and her as the perpetrator before the Sun case.

I haven’t watched the coverage as I find it distasteful. ive been really disturbed by the pile on towards Amber, especially some of the threads on here

This is exactly what's wrong. Have you watched the trial footage? If not, how can you be so sure that JD is guilty of DARVO that you will state it on a forum, when everything seen so far in the trail suggests it's actually the other way round?

He was found guilty of abuse in the UK trial, is that correct?

Yes, there's a 129 page document that lists everything he was found guilty of

Correct.

But this is a different trial, in a different country, with different admissible evidence, different defendant, different witnesses, different testimonies, different charges (counts), different focus and different information that has come to light since.

Yes the UK judge said it was substantially true to call him a wife beater, and that 12 cases of domestic violence towards her were proven.
As a pp said, perhaps she does have MH issues, maybe they were there before, maybe not. However, domestic abuse can certainly cause a lot of trauma and could trigger or exacerbate existing MH problems.

Bonnes yes I have begun to watch.

I can't get over how everyone seems to
gloss over raping her with a glass bottle.

I'm sure she retaliated. He's detailed some awful stuff. He clearly love bombed her too.

I am finding this whole trial so incredibly depressing - I cannot imagine what Amber Heard is going through. I cannot imagine how one can recover from such a public traumatic experience - she and her baby daughter are receiving death threats. I was a big Depp fan in the past but cannot stand him now. I’m trying to avoid it on social media as much as possible but there are a couple of websites covering it which seem more balanced (eg oh no they didn’t) and there was an interesting post on a Reddit forum which is not rabidly pro-Depp as most of them are (below) What I find particularly demoralising is how quickly people are willing to believe things which are demonstrably false and start stating it as fact www.reddit.com/r/Deuxmoi/comments/ukgxe8/list_of_ahjd_abuse_myths_debunked/

Yes, it’s true this is a different trial in a different country. But the U.K. is incredibly claimant friendly. It should have been a slam dunk for Johnny. In the U.K. , Johnny didn’t have to prove a thing. The burden of proof was entirely on the Sun, who has to prove it was substantially true that Depp was a “wife beater.” That’s very difficult. And yet they managed to show it was true he was abusive, on most of the occasions. Depp lost miserably.

The USA is famously anti claimant in defamation trials. The first amendment and the precedent that public figures have an extra hurdle to jump through in libel cases means it will be exceptionally hard for Depp to win his case (unless the jury sympathise with him.) Johnny has to prove that he wasn’t abusive to amber, and he also has to prove that she maliciously (deliberately) lied about him being an abuser in order to damage his reputation. That is a challenge. By legal standards , if he abused her too he loses. If he doesn’t manage to show she lied with malice, he loses. He has an extraordinary uphill battle compared to the U.K. case, and as far as I can see in his witness statements he hasn’t said anything new.

The link TheAugusta has shared lays out exactly that wee, and a number of other details besides.

And a comment that Reddit created a gif of her to make her look stupid as she describes being raped with a bottle.

Also this:

"Another point of evidence of his abuse on top of the kicking and headbutt evidence
Jerry Judge (Johnny’s bodyguard) asks Josh Drew (Amber’s penthouse neighbour): “is she ok?” Josh: Are you fucking kidding me? He beat the shit out of her again, and you guys stood by and watched it” Jerry: “Its not my business. It’s between husband and wife. He barely touched her.”
See page 119. Read the rest for what happened (Johnny hitting her in the face with her iphone) with Josh’s testimony on page 147-150"

You've not followed the trial, yet you have an opinion of it!

I’m so glad to see a thread where people are sympathetic towards AH. I feel like I’m in the twilight zone when I see the vitriol aimed at her.

Remember when JD’s legal team leaked the audio of AH saying “no one will believe you.”? The one that turned the tide and had everyone believing that she was the abuser and he was the victim? Well here’s the full audio of their phone call. It paints a very different picture to the heavily edited version JD’s lawyer released. From listening to it, it seems clear to me that HE is the one gaslighting her.

I must admit I got a chuckle when he was in the middle of love bombing her, saying how much he loves her only for his phone to start ringing and it’s Amber, who had got cut off and so hadn’t heard a word of it 😂

JD and his team have very successfully slandered AH. Her reputation is in tatters and I believe that has been his intention from the beginning. He’s still finding ways to control and abuse her. He’s very unlikely to win this case but he’s already won in the court of public opinion and I believe that was the plan all along.

I have absolutely no idea what evidence was put before the UK judge because I couldn't watch it. I assumed there must be persuasive evidence for his decision but after watching the US court case, I'm wondering how much evidence must have been excluded. You can't listen to Depps witnesses and not believe them. They are compelling. On top of that there are tapes that Heard herself made where she both admits assaulting Depp, and that seem to contradict her own claims. Add to that, her story seems to change, and she never gave the money to charity she said she had.
I'm not in any way a Depp fan. At all. But I do think that when only one side of the truth comes out, it's unfair. The UK trial left him labelled as a wifebeater and she walked away as an innocent advocate for DA victims and a generous donor to charity. And it turns out, that is not an accurate representation whatsoever. I believe she will win the case but now, at least, Depp will have the satisfaction of knowing that many more people, including his friends and peers, will see that the clear ruling against him in the UK case did not reflect the reality of his marriage.

Reading these comments, not one of you must of watched the entire thing like I have! Not saying he is a Saint but AH is crazy and clearly exaggerating and making up lies. She was arrested for DV in here previous marriage. She's been heard admitting to hitting him. She said Johnny cut off the tip of his finger himself, yet in the audio She's clearly heard saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to" and "he's going to leave me now" she said she had black eyes but was on live television the next day, she said make up covered up her black eyes, yet the make up artised said she put her make up on and she had no black eyes.. the lost goes on! Probably was a bit of mutual abuse but AH is highly more likely to be the perpetrator. Men get abused too!!!

Yes, it’s true this is a different trial in a different country. But the U.K. is incredibly claimant friendly. It should have been a slam dunk for Johnny. In the U.K. , Johnny didn’t have to prove a thing. The burden of proof was entirely on the Sun, who has to prove it was substantially true that Depp was a “wife beater.” That’s very difficult. And yet they managed to show it was true he was abusive, on most of the occasions. Depp lost miserably.

I must admit when I saw it was Sasha Wass QC acting for The Sun I immediately thought JD was toast.

But isn't the sole point of the trial quite narrow - it's about whether the statement made about Depp being a wife beater is true or not?

the trial isn't about whether amber is a husband beater or not a nice person because no such statement has been made and challenged by her (as defamatory)?

So if there is evidence (which shows beyond reasonable doubt) he hit her or assaulted her in a different way then by definition he hit his wife and is a wife beater?

That was the point of the UK trial, The Sun Reporter Dan Wooton called JD a wife beater, AH has not at any time said that. The case in the UK was against the Sun not AH.

The American case is about the Op-Ed in the Washington Post, nowhere in that article are the words 'wife beater' used. However, JD is arguing that the article even though it doesn't name him (The Sun one did) it is clear it was about him and has resulted in reputational damage to him and loss of work.

I think he has damaged his reputation far more by the revelations that have come to light in both the court cases than the Op-Ed did or ever could have done.