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 In a ruling that could severely
damage Depp's reputation and career, Judge
Andrew Nicol said he accepted claims from the
actor's ex-wife, actress Amber Heard, that he
had violently assaulted her during their
tempestuous five-year relationship.
"I have found that the great majority of alleged
assaults of Ms Heard by Mr Depp have been proved
to the civil standard," said Nicol. "The
claimant has not succeeded in his action for
libel."
Depp, 57, star of films including "Pirates of
the Caribbean" and "Edward Scissorhands", had
sued News Group Newspapers, publishers of the
Sun, and one of its journalists, Dan Wootton,
over a 2018 article which stated he had been
violent towards Heard, 34.
The newspaper also questioned his casting in the
"Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them" movie
franchise.
Nicol ruled that the paper's allegations were
"substantially true". "It follows that this
claim is dismissed," he said.
Over the course of three weeks at London's High
Court in July, the judge heard evidence from
both Depp and Heard about their fiery marriage,
alleged affairs, his hedonistic lifestyle and
battle with drink and drugs, and furious rows.
Each accused the other of violent outbursts.
Heard said Depp would turn into a jealous alter
ego, "the monster", after bingeing on drugs and
alcohol. He had often threatened to kill her,
she said. Heard detailed 14 occasions of extreme
violence when she said the actor choked,
punched, slapped, head-butted, throttled and
kicked her.
Nicol said he accepted 12 of these accounts were
true, including her description of a three-day
ordeal of "sustained and multiple assaults"
while they were in Australia.
'TERRIFYING' RAGE
"It is a sign of the depth of his rage that he
admitted scrawling graffiti in blood from his
injured finger and then, when that was
insufficient, dipping his badly injured finger
in paint and continuing to write messages and
other things," Nicol said.
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 "They must have been
terrifying. I accept that Mr Depp put her in
fear of her life."
The couple met while making "The Rum Diary" in
2011 and married four years later, but divorced
in 2016. Depp had told the court
he was never violent towards his ex-wife, saying
her claims were a hoax and that he had lost the
tip of a finger after she threw a vodka bottle
at him during the particularly ferocious row in
Australia.
Nicol rejected his version of how he lost the
finger, as well as Depp's characterisation of
Heard as a gold-digger and his allegation that
her claims were a hoax.
"For those of us present for the London High
Court trial, this decision and judgment are not
a surprise," Elaine Charlson Bredehoft, Heard's
U.S. lawyer said in a statement.
"Very soon, we will be presenting even more
voluminous evidence in the U.S. We are committed
to obtaining Justice for Amber Heard in the U.S.
Court and defending Ms. Heard's Right to Free
Speech."
Depp has also filed a $50 million defamation
lawsuit against Heard in a Virginia court over
an opinion piece she wrote in The Washington
Post.
The Sun said the ruling was a "stunning victory"
for press freedom.
"Domestic abuse victims must never be silenced
and we thank the judge for his careful
consideration and thank Amber Heard for her
courage in giving evidence to the court," the
Sun said in a statement.
(Reporting by Michael Holden and Alistair Smout;
editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Mike Collett-White)
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