Amber Heard Allowed To Watch Ex-Husband Johnny Depp Testify In Court

Amber Heard and her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, might be meeting face-to-face soon. The actress can reportedly be present when he testifies in the libel case he filed against the publisher of tabloid 'The Sun' over an article that labeled him as a “wife-beater.”

According to Deadline, witnesses for U.K. cases would not normally be allowed inside the courtroom while another one testifies, but they are allowed in for civil cases. Depp asked that Heard would not be present during Tuesday’s (July 7) hearing, insisting that the “Aquaman” star’s testimony would be influenced after seeing him being cross-examined.

However, Judge Andrew Nicol declined the actor's plea and said that it would be “unfair” and “inhibit … the conduct of their defense.” He explained that even though Heard is not a party, News Group Newspapers (NGN) and The Sun's executive director Dan Wootton may need information that only the actress can provide during the hearing.

“[Heard] will not be in a position to give instructions to (NGN’s lawyers), but she can provide information on which the defendants may choose to act. There is a benefit to the defendants in her being able to do that near-instantaneously in the course of Mr. Depp’s cross-examination and, in my view, it would be unfair to the defendants to deprive them of that advantage,” Nicol said, The Guardian reported.

This new development comes on the heels of NGN’s recent attempt to have the case thrown out after the high court ruled that Depp’s camp breached an order by failing to disclose text messages that show he was trying to obtain drugs. The conversation was from 2015, days before Heard said she was assaulted by the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star for three days in Australia.

However, the judge still allowed the trial to push through. The trial was supposed to start in March but was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The libel case stems from a 2018 article of The Sun which alleged that Depp physically abused his wife during their marriage, a charge that the actor has denied, according to The Guardian. The piece was titled “Gone Potty – How can JK Rowling be ‘genuinely happy’ casting wife-beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?”

Depp also filed a $50-million lawsuit against Heard for a piece she wrote for the Washington Post in which she alleged that she was a victim of domestic abuse.