Actor Amber Heard’s friend testifies she saw bruises inflicted by Johnny Depp
WARNING: This story accommodates particulars of intimate companion violence.
A pal of actor Amber Heard testified Wednesday that she noticed the bruises and cuts left within the aftermath of a number of alleged incidents of abuse inflicted by Heard’s ex-husband, actor Johnny Depp.
In a recorded deposition performed for jurors, Raquel Pennington mentioned she by no means personally witnessed Depp strike Heard. However she mentioned she noticed the accidents and he or she took pictures of Heard’s face in December 2015 after a battle during which Heard says Depp head-butted her and maybe broke her nostril.
The photograph reveals a swollen nostril, a lower lip and two reasonably black eyes on Heard’s face. She additionally took a photograph of strands of hair that she mentioned had been ripped from Heard’s scalp.
Heard “usually needed to cowl bruises and accidents on her face” with make-up, Pennington mentioned within the January 2022 deposition.
Pennington mentioned she would not actually take into account herself a present pal of Heard and that the 2 grew aside within the final yr.
Depp is suing Heard for libel in Virginia’s Fairfax County Circuit Court docket over a December 2018 op-ed she wrote within the Washington Put up describing herself as “a public determine representing home abuse.” His attorneys say he was defamed by the article regardless that it by no means talked about his identify.
The trial is now in its fifth week.
Depp says he by no means struck Heard and that he was the sufferer of abuse inflicted by Heard.
The December 2015 battle is one among a number of that had been disputed. Whereas jurors have seen the pictures taken by Pennington documenting the accidents, they’ve additionally seen video of Heard’s look on a late-night discuss present the subsequent day during which these accidents aren’t seen.
Heard has mentioned the accidents had been simply lined by make-up.
Pennington’s testimony comes after Heard wrapped up her time on the witness stand, together with two grueling days of cross-examination during which Depp’s attorneys questioned Heard in regards to the truthfulness of her allegations of bodily and sexual abuse.
Testimony supplies corroborating proof
Pennington’s testimony supplies corroborating proof to a number of of the alleged assaults.
Along with the December 2015 incident, Pennington mentioned she noticed cuts on Heard’s toes when she returned from a visit to Australia in March 2015. Heard testified that Depp sexually assaulted her with a liquor bottle on that journey and mentioned that she lower her toes on damaged glass from the assault.
Pennington, who lived for a time in a collection of penthouses together with Depp and Heard, mentioned she was the primary individual to see Heard throughout a remaining battle between the couple in Might 2016 that precipitated the couple’s divorce.
Assist is obtainable for anybody who has been abused or assaulted. You may entry disaster traces and native assist companies by way of the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. The Canadian Girls’s Basis’s Signal For Help is a silent, one-handed gesture to make use of in a video name to point that you’re prone to violence at dwelling. For those who’re in rapid hazard or concern to your security or that of others round you, please name 911.
