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 High Court judge Andrew Nicol
ruled in November against Depp, star of films
including "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Edward
Scissorhands", after he brought a libel case
against the Sun tabloid newspaper.
After three weeks of hearings last summer, Nicol
concluded Depp, 57, had violently assaulted his
ex-wife, actress Amber Heard, 34, during a
tempestuous five-year relationship, putting her
in fear of her life.
"As we have said, it is not easy to persuade
this court to overturn the findings of a trial
judge on purely factual questions," the two
Court of Appeal judges said in their judgment.
"We do not believe that there is a real prospect
of it being prepared to do so in this case."
Last week, Depp's lawyers said Nicol's ruling
was "plainly wrong" and asked to rely on new
evidence which they said showed Heard's claim
she had donated her divorce settlement to
charity was "a calculated and manipulative lie".
But the Court of Appeal said the hearings before
him last summer were fair.
"He gave thorough reasons for his conclusions
which have not been shown even arguably to be
vitiated by any error of approach or mistake of
law," the judge said.
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 In her evidence, Heard said
Depp would turn into a jealous alter ego, "the
monster", after bingeing on drugs and alcohol
and had threatened to kill her.
She detailed 14 occasions of extreme violence
when she said the actor choked, punched,
slapped, head-butted, throttled and kicked her,
with Nicol accepting 12 of these accounts as
true.
"We are pleased - but by no means surprised - by
the court’s denial of Mr Depp’s application for
appeal," a spokeswoman for Heard said, saying
the evidence was "overwhelming and undeniable".
The Sun said the decision vindicated the
evidence Heard gave, saying it had been
confident that permission to appeal would be
refused.
The libel case has already damaged Depp's
career, as he was asked to leave the "Fantastic
Beasts" franchise, the movie spin-offs from the
"Harry Potter" books and films, days after
Nicol's verdict.
However, he has also filed a $50 million
defamation lawsuit against Heard in a Virginia
court over an opinion piece she wrote in The
Washington Post, and that case is ongoing.
(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by William
James and Mike Collett-White)
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