Johnny Depp’s ‘deep misogyny’ was at the root of his anger that manifested as violence towards Amber Heard, the closing stages of his libel trial was told today, as emails and texts were read out in which he used words like ‘whore’ and ‘slut’ to refer to his ex-wife and other women.

The Hollywood star stayed away from today’s session at the High Court in London, which heard how his self-description as a ‘Southern gentlemen who had respect for women’ was ‘entirely untrue’.

The hard-hitting claims were made as Sasha Wass QC, representing the Sun newspaper, delivered the defence’s final submission in the high-profile libel case which has rocked the showbiz world with sensational revelations of Depp’s troubled relationship with the Aquaman actress.

Over the past three weeks, the hearing has heard from Depp, Heard and 25 other witnesses who have provided graphic testimony of their stormy relationship and details of Depp’s excessive use of alcohol and drug binges.

Depp, 57, is suing News Group Newspapers, publishers of the Sun and executive editor Dan Wootton over a 2018 article which referred to him as a ‘wife beater’.

It appeared under the headline ‘Gone Potty How can JK Rowling be ‘genuinely happy’ casting wife-beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?’

Heard did attend court today and was pictured smiling alongside girlfriend Bianca Butti, before waving at awaiting fans outside the Royal Courts of Justice.

Depp is to return to the High Court on Tuesday when his lawyer David Sherborne will deliver his final submission.

As the blockbuster trial nears its conclusion, the High Court heard today:

Amber Heard waves as she leaves the High Court in London after attending the closing stages of ex-husband Johnny Depp’s libel trial against The Sun newspaper

Heard smiles as she leaves The Royal Courts of Justice which was told today during closing statements how Depp allegedly used words such as ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ to refer to his ex-wife and other women

Depp – pictured last week – has attended every day of his libel case against The Sun newspaper after it printed allegations he was a wife-beater

Amber Heard wrote honeymoon diary entry alleging Johnny Depp tried to strangle her with her own shirt, court hears

Johnny Depp allegedly tried to strangle Amber Heard with her own shirt during their honeymoon, according to the actress’s diary entry mentioned in court today.

Sasha Wass QC told London’s High Court about the evidence in relation to the couple’s honeymoon in July 2015 on a train in south-east Asia.

Delivering her final submission on behalf of the Sun newspaper, who are being sued by Depp after a 2018 article referred to him as a ‘wife beater’, she said Heard described an argument during which Depp assaulted her.

She said this contradicted the actor’s evidence, which was that he had not been violent towards his wife in any way.

The barrister referred to Heard’s handwritten diary entry from July 27 2015, in which she said the actress gave a ‘graphic description’ of Depp trying to strangle her with her own shirt.

Ms Wass said that, despite Depp saying he was not violent towards Heard in his evidence, the actor said in a September 2015 audio recording of the couple discussing their relationship that they had a great time ‘other than we had a fight on the train which was physical’.

She said the conversation was not simply about Heard being responsible for all the violence, but that Depp was also accepting being physical, which she said was ‘completely absent from his witness statement or his evidence in this case’.

Ms Wass said in another part of the conversation, Depp ‘appears to be accepting that he is the culprit the majority of the time’ and that he says sometimes ‘I just freak out’.

The barrister said: ‘That is exactly what this case is about, Mr Depp freaking out after he has taken too many illegal drugs and drunk too much alcohol.’

Ms Wass said there was ‘overwhelming evidence of domestic violence or wife-beating behaviour, cataloged over a three-year period.’

She said Depp was ‘a hopeless addict who repeatedly lost his self-control and all ability to restrain his anger.’

‘Permeating all of the evidence in this case is the character of Mr. Depp himself – his well-documented evidence of violence and destruction over his adult life which have occurred when he was under the influence of drink and drugs.’

Ms Wass added that Depp ‘was subject to irrational mood swings and abnormal behavioral patterns, which would not have been present when Mr. Depp was clean and sober, and Mr. Depp has a name for this metamorphosed entity – namely, The Monster.’

She said: ‘The other aspect which is important in terms of substance abuse is Mr Depp’s recollection of his own disgraceful conduct, which is so severely impaired by drug misuse that he may not even have been aware of the extent of his violence and terrifying behaviour which, on more than one of these pleaded incidents, put Ms Heard in fear of her life.’

Depp and Heard met on the set of the 2011 comedy ‘The Rum Diary’ and married in Los Angeles in February 2015. Heard filed for divorce the following year, and the divorce was finalized in 2017.

The former spouses have both been in court during three weeks of testimony at the grand neo-Gothic court building.

Ms Wass reminded Mr Justice Nicol there were ‘well-documented episodes of violence and destruction’ over Depp’s adult life and that the actor had accepted he was violent to inanimate objects but not people.

However, she said there was an incident earlier in his career when he assaulted a photographer with a plank of wood when under the influence of drink and drugs.

She also said his evidence that he was not violent towards people was ‘meaningless’ when he was as intoxicated as he was on occasions and ‘wouldn’t have known what he was doing’.

Ms Wass continued: ‘In answer to what we suggest is overwhelming evidence of domestic violence or wife-beating behaviour, catalogued over a three-year period between 2013 and 2016, Mr Depp’s response is to claim that he is a victim of an elaborate hoax that has been perpetrated against him by Ms Heard and her friends.’

The barrister said Depp had accused Heard and her friends of ‘having painted on injuries, manipulated photographs and destroyed property which they then went on to photograph in order to create what he describes as some sort of insurance policy for Ms Heard’.

Ms Wass added: ‘What exactly Ms Heard was insuring against in the course of this hoax remains unexplained.’

She told the court that such a hoax ‘would have entailed Ms Heard engaging in a pre-planned conspiracy over the period of the entire relationship with Mr Depp’, adding: ‘Such a suggestion, we say, is risible.’

Ms Wass told the court: ‘The approach taken by Mr Depp from the time Ms Heard obtained a domestic violence restraining order against him on May 27 2016 was as follows: to deny that he ever assaulted Ms Heard, to accuse Ms Heard of being the violent party and to reverse his role with hers.’

Amber Heard smiling as arrives at the High Court in London with Bianca Butti this morning

Amber Heard waving to fans (left) as she arrived at the Royal Courts of Justice this morning

Depp’s alleged violence against Heard ‘supported by a wealth of evidence,’ court hears

Johnny Depp’s alleged violence towards Amber Heard during a night in December 2015 is ‘supported by a wealth of evidence,’ the High Court heard today.

The Sun’s lawyer Sasha Wass QC said: ‘Mr Depp was intoxicated and violent. He headbutted her, he chased her up the stairs, grabbed hold of her hair and dragged her by the hair into PH (penthouse) four.

‘He threw her onto the bed and hurled himself on top of her with such force that the bed frame was damaged.’

Ms Wass said Johnny Depp then went to the kitchen in penthouse three and wrote in gold paint: ‘Why be a fraud? All is bulls***.’

She said that after that incident, Ms Heard messaged her publicist Jodie Gottlieb to say she had had ‘an accident’ and was ‘really bruised and might have a black eye or two’.

Ms Wass said: ‘If this was an elaborate hoax, why would Ms Heard be protecting Mr Depp at this stage?

‘Because she is not telling her publicist she was assaulted by her husband – which is, we suggest, the truth.

‘She is pretending it was an accident and, for the avoidance of doubt, there is no room for accident in the injuries Ms Heard suffered, because it was not only the headbutt… but it was the pulling out of her hair in clumps and the damage caused to her scalp.’

Ms Wass said Mr Depp admitted in evidence that there may have been a headbutt, but it was accidental.

However the barrister said there was ‘no way he was dragging Ms Heard by her hair in a way that was anything other than deliberate’.

The barrister also referred to ‘the story released to the media and published in early June 2016 suggesting that Ms Heard had been arrested for domestic violence in the past, that incident dated back to 2009’.

She added: ‘It was no coincidence, we suggest, that this emerged within days of Ms Heard being granted protection of the court by way of a restraining order.

‘Shortly before that article was published in the press, Stephen Deuters, Mr Depp’s assistant, was receiving information from people by text who had clearly been prying into Ms Heard’s relationship with (her ex-partner, Tasya) van Ree.’

Ms Wass said: ‘No charges were brought against Ms Heard following her arrest and Ms van Ree herself has denied that any assault took place.’

She added: ‘This aspect of the case is a red herring.’

Ms Wass said that ‘there was another suggestion, or another attempt to resurrect the suggestion, that Ms Heard was the violent party’ last week when Ms Heard’s sister Whitney Henriquez was shown a video of herself on a reality show from 2006.

The barrister said Ms Henriquez ‘flatly denied that the fatuous exchange that was recorded on that television show was a reference to physical violence’ against her by Ms Heard.

Ms Wass added: ‘That piece of evidence is nothing more than a red herring – it has no bearing whatsoever on whether Mr Depp hit Ms Heard.’

Mr Justice Nicol intervened to say: ‘If it were the case that all that Mr Depp was doing, to the extent that he was violent towards Ms Heard, was defending himself then that would not assist the defendants in proving the truth of the alleged libel that Mr Depp is a wife beater.’

Ms Wass replied: ‘I agree, it would have to be unlawful violence, namely not in self-defence.’

Ms Wass continued that ‘the way the case has been put forward’ by Mr Depp’s lawyers ‘assumes that if it can be proved … Ms Heard had struck him on one occasion … this absolves Mr Depp from any responsibility for the many occasions when he assaulted her’.

She added: ‘It is as though Mr Depp is seeking to justify his physical assaults on Ms Heard on the basis that she may have deserved it from something she had done on some other occasion.’

Ms Wass said that the case was not about whether Ms Heard ‘fought back or even lost her temper’.

The barrister told Mr Justice Nicol: ‘The issue is whether Mr Depp used unlawful violence against Ms Heard and one only has to look at (a) picture of Ms Heard and Mr Depp together.’

Ms Wass showed a picture of the couple to the court, which she said gave ‘a clear indication of the respective physical capabilities’ of Mr Depp and Ms Heard.

She said: ‘One only has to look at that picture to see that Ms Heard lacked the physical capabilities to be the successful party in any fight.’