Thread by @nickwallis

[Just now looking at NGN’s response]

"the Appellant contends that the “fresh” evidence relating to the donations supports a theory that Ms Heard was a ‘gold-digger’; and that the ‘gold-digger’ thesis explains why Ms Heard had over the course of her 5-year relationship...

… with the Appellant carefully constructed a ‘hoax’ to demonstrate that he had committed multiple acts of violence against her. It is also said by the Appellant that the “fresh” evidence would have...

… undermined Ms Heard’s credibility with the inevitable result that the judge would have reached a different decision about the 12 assaults (out of the 14 pleaded assaults) he found the Appellant to have perpetrated.

The Respondents’ position is set out in the fourth witness statement of Jeffrey Smele dated 24 February 2021, and is in summary that:
The evidence is not “fresh” at all, since it could have been obtained with reasonable diligence for trial;

The “fresh” evidence (which the Respondents accept is apparently credible insofar as it shows that Ms Heard has not yet finished making her pledged payments to the charities) only goes to a highly peripheral and unpleaded matter, and is of no...

...relevance to the pleaded issues (i.e. the 14 assaults) that Nicol J had to decide;

The evidence would have had no impact on Ms Heard’s credibility had it been before the trial judge, since it does not demonstrate that Ms Heard or any of the Respondents’ witnesses lied;

The evidence therefore comes nowhere close to satisfying the Ladd v Marshall [1954] 3 All ER 745 criteria;

The application to admit the evidence should therefore be refused, along with any application to amend the appeal notice;

The application for permission to appeal should be dismissed, since, per CPR 52.6(1), the appeal has no real prospect of success and there is no other compelling reason for an appeal to be heard.

SUBMISSIONS

Charity donations

Could the Appellant have obtained this evidence for the trial with reasonable diligence?

The answer to this question is yes.

The question of whether or not Ms Heard had fulfilled her pledges to the two charities had been a preoccupation of the Appellant since 2016, and had been a matter which his...

… very well-funded team of professional advisors had been very actively investigating well before this trial began in July 2020, including in the libel claim he is bringing against Ms Heard in the US. The Appellant or his legal or business advisors:

(a) knew from 2016 that Ms Heard’s donation to the charities was going to be paid in multiple instalments rather than as a lump-sum payment;

(b) suspected that Ms Heard would not make the payments as in the words of the Appellant she was a “scumbag gold-digger”. For example the Appellant texted his nurse on 18 August 2016 saying, “She won’t donate ONE PENNY!!!! Did you notice...

that it was a non disclosed charity??? She’s been pushing Art of Elysium for years!!!! And, what about battered women??? No Way she’ll give a dime to anyone!!! Thank fuck she’s gone!!! Makes me sick to think of how hard I tried to

make it work... Now... Honestly, I wouldn’t touch that fucking whore with a Hazmat suit on!!! What scum. I fucking hate her!!!”

(c) asked questions about whether the payments had been made;
(d) had in June 2019 been sent a letter by the Children’s Hospital saying that “since
the first installment, CHLA Foundation has not received further installments”;

[we’re back in court]
[Sasha Wass QC is on her feet saying the juddge did criticise AH for hyperbole and that the Australian incident wasn’t a “hostage situation”. SW pointing out JD lied about his drug use in Australia]
SW the texts by JD supported AH’s case, but did not...

… support his own.
SW JD admitted he used the blood from his seriously injured finger to deface the house, which he admitted he cut and when the blood from the finger dried he used paint to vandalise the house.
J yes
SW now we heard AH saying she had been subjected to...

… violence in a number of ways.
SW she had injuries, we know this from the secret recording.
J yes we’ve read the judgment - why are you making these points now - are you suggesting there is ample evidence re…
SW not just ample evidence, but ample supporting evidence...

… when we look at the evidence globally and the deranged behaviour of JD
J so are you saying, taking your examples as your best examples that she was telling the truth and he was not that Nicol was entitled to take the view he did on the other evidence.

SW I don’t say they were the best examples - there were other examples. Make up artists, people who heard her shouting.
J I wasn’t saying they were your only 2 examples. Why choose them?
SW lots of examples - Nicol by refraining from making a full fact finding analysis he still..

… looked carefully at this in the round and it is a perfectly rational decision, it was analysed accordingly and there is no reason to say it lacked analysis on credibility or events.

SW - AH was questioned about these tapes which were at the highest admissions to one hitting incident, and one throwing of a pot or pan. The tape that was referred to as argument2, but it was bickering between two people in the final stages of a relationship. The judge was...

… entitled to say he was not going to give them the same weight as someone sworn in in court. To describe them as documentary evidence is wrong.
J - AC is saying they are contemporaneous tapes which might in some respects be better or worse.
SW the learned judge listened...

… to the two hour tapes and was there for the witness evidence in court and he was entitled to make the decision he did.
SW finally - as I want to leave Mr Wolanski more times. Even if AH was feisty and slapped JD as she admitted, that does not disqualify her from being a...

… victim of serious domestic violence.
J that’s not how the judge decided - he didn’t say it was both sides.
SW indeed - he only had to find one. I’m now going to ask Mr Wolanski...

Adam Wolanski [AW]
AW AH had not yet paid all teh money to charity by 2020. There were six ways they could have found out this was the case. First by asking the charities by subpoeana (but earlier, or subpoena to AH (but earlier), asking her in court during the trial, by EW...

… asking the charities on JD’s behalf, by 3rd party disclosure and finally be seeking the documents from the charities by a disclosure order in the US.

Going through them one by one

J they don’t need much by the way of amplification do they?

AW not really
[but he starts doing so any way]
AW by the time the subpoenas had been issued on 20 May 2020 it took 7 months to get them, but in the US proceedings JD’s team was asking questions in Nov 2019. So why not get a subpoena for US (think he means UK) proceedings till May

AW we know an appliation was made for disclosure from AH in Dec 2020, but we know nothing else at all about that application. We don’t know when it was issued or why it wasn’t issued earlier. There is no reason for this court to suppose that the info could not be obtained earlier

[this is a very long-winded way of saying that the extra evidence argument does not get out of the gate because if it was that important they had every oppo to get it in place for the July trial]

AW the only reason the documents where added to the trial bundle is to ask Ms Heard about them in xe. That is the ONLY reason they could have been added. She wasn’t. A decision was made not to question her. Why not? They new it was not a matter that was going to get them...

… anywhere at trial, which is why they didn’t pursue it.

[continues to give reasons why this is extra evidence is essentially too little too late to trigger an appeal]

[onto materiality]
AW this extra material would not make any difference to the judgment. It was not a pleaded issue. It could only have any bearing if it was part of the so-called gold-digger thesis, which was expressly abandoned by JD’s legal team during the trial.

AW it was a misogynistic trope and was hopeless and even if the judge did have the evidence and decide she was a gold-digger it did not affect whether she was a victim of DV

AW so it goes to credit. This material would have made NO difference at all to AH’s credit. The information does not demonstrate that AH lied. She said that she had donated the money, not that she had paid it. It was a pledge. A pledge to pay over 10 years. That is a donation.

AW there is nothing wrong, let alone dishonest with AH’s descroption of what she did. She has made payments, some $950K to the ACLU and $850K to the hospital, either as direct donation or as anonymous donations in her name
J objects to that latter point - we don’t know...

… enough about an anonymous donor to say that counts towards her pledge.
AW okay
J but she has donated out of her own pocket
AW yes and there is no mistruth in her statement

[goes to the authorities as to how much case law raised by the appellant is relevant in this case]
AW finally, AC tried to draw a distinction in a case involving fraud. No one is alleging a fraud is been perpertrated on the court. This is pure Ladd v Marshall [another authority]

AC back on his fee to answer for 5 minutes [he is reading from the authorities - Hamilton v Al Fayed and Meek v Fleming saying they are the right test not Ladd or Craddock]
AC incident 4 was found as a kick, not a “fear of life” incident.
AC Australia is NOTHING LIKE...

… as straighforward as presented. There is another curious fact - a mobile phone by accident was left on at a relevant time to the Australia incident. It contains statements “there’s been bottles thrown” “she admits to me she threw one first” “she admitted she hit him first"

AC also evidence from a Mr King on a plane back from Oz, AH asks “have you ever been so angry that you’ve just lost it”

J says “I accept it’s possible she made that remark” but my conclusions remain the same

AC on other point on the hostage criticism - this is the scenario...

[we go into confidential incident]
[and straight out of it]
[now back to the donation]
AC if this evidence is entirely neutral why does AH go to such lengths to suppress it? No explanation at all. What AW does not say at all is if it is a lie, would it affect her credibility?

AC and we say of course it would.
[case law eg]
AC if you form the view that JD was responsible for the assault in the confidential judgment, wouldn’t that be the beginning and the end of his credibility. If we are right hat was a questionable finding, that should be of real...

… concern to the court.
J we are not going to reach a decision today. It will be handed down in writing soon. I don’t think thre’s anything else that we need say. Thank you.
[court rises. feed stops]

I’m going to take a break for lunch, then I’m going to have a look at the extra documents we’ve been supplied by the parties, then I’ve got to find out what the order re confidentiality was at the beginnng of the hearing and then I might be able to post them or redacted versions

of them online. This may take some time.

If these tweets have been in any way helpful, please do consider chucking a couple of quid in the tip jar:

store29806256.company.site

Or donate for an advance copy of my book which has nothing to do with Depp v NGN...

… but if it is successful and I can get a visa, will almost certainly be the subject of the next one!

By the way, lunch is...

The chocolate bar of chocolate bars:

Incidentally - this, by Roald Dahl "Cadbury’s, after an enormous amount of market research, found out that what the public liked was not a sharp minty or sugary flavour, but something bland, almost tasteless. It learned this by studying the success of Heinz Baked Beans….

… So it invented a bland, tasteless bar, which was actually two bars. The company called it the Double Decker which sold more than 160 million."

You’ll be pleased to know it’s part of a balanced diet:

Thanks for all the comments, and the donations. I’m really grateful. I’m sure my publisher won’t mind me taking a day off writing to cover the Depp v NGN. I’ll tweet again when/if the documents I’ve got are up online.

Thanks all.

Sorry this has taken so long I have now posted up on my website:

1. Today’s transcript (redacted by me in line with a court order re confidential evidence)

2. Two witness statements to support the application to adduce additional evidence. Joelle Rich’s one is more than 300 pages long.

3. The response by NGN and Wootton to the application to adduce additional evidence.

4. JD’s reply to the NGN and Wootton response.

These documents are available here: nickwallis.com/courtofappeal

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Please tell me if the links do/don’t work.

Thanks so much for all your support. My work over the last two days has been entirely crowdfunded. If you’ve found anything I’ve done of use, and haven’t already, I’d be extremely grateful for a SMALL donation:

store29806256.company.site

I will obviously let you know when the ruling on the application to appeal comes through. We often don’t get a heads up on these things - they sometimes just appear on the judiciary website.

A reminder that if the judges at the hearing decline to give Mr Depp permission to appeal, that’s the end of the road for his legal action over the newspaper article in the UK.

If the judges decide to allow it, it will go to another hearing where Mr Depp’s team (as they again indicated today) will seek a retrial.

Right - goodnight. I’m going to watch the football. Thanks for all the kind messages and support. It means a lot, and I’m sorry I can’t reply to every one.

And thanks for giving me an excuse to have a Double Decker again! Nom.