Johnny Depp y Amber Heard: why?

II promised to start a series of question related 'articles' here on LinkedIn , and this is the first: it's related to Johnny Depp's case against Amber Heard. (You guessed already from the picture and title?)

My questions are these:

·????????what does this case tell us about justice?

·????????why is this being shown in public?

·????????what does this, importantly, mean for other victims?

This next bit may sound brutal, but I don't care about anyone's opinion about who's right or wrong, whether your team is #JusticeForJohnny or #IStandWithAmber. Our opinions here on that matter are pure speculation and unlikely to change anyone's minds, or anything else for that matter.

This is a toxic relationship being laid bare.

On the one side we have the charismatic, wealthy, superstar Depp with a team of six or so legal representatives, one of whom, a kick ass female lawyer, seems to be gathering her own following and inspiring future generations of female legal professionals. He, Depp, has a tragic history of drug addiction, regularly referred to his very beautiful girlfriend as a c*nt and flabby hoar, was incredibly jealous and possessive, and is spending his time in court laughing with his team. He is, somewhat weirdly, punishing Amber by refusing to look at her. He claims she hit him and has provided recordings to that effect.

On the other side is a successful actress, younger and with less charisma, money and fame than Depp, Amber Heard. She has been characterised as mentally unstable and unwell, and has less representation on every count. Her legal support is less charismatic, less in your face - she (the brief) also has two things against her, one being a woman, one being her age. Heard claims Depp was abusive, and whilst there are lots of indications of Depp's controlling behaviour, there is little evidence of physical abuse being shown to the court as yet.

The whole thing is pure Hollywood. The protagonists are well known actors. There are glimpses into the way that the super wealthy choose to live - houses with bar rooms, trips on luxury jets, drugs and nightclubs, and entourages of flight attendants and security guards. If they're still employed, they can't speak against their employer. If they are no longer employed, the lawyers can go to town on them. Finding the truth is a problem. There are two sides in this case, each trying to portray each other as 'evil' and themselves as 'good', or at very least the aggrieved victim. And maybe I'm the only one to think it, but I suspect they both still have strong feelings for each other, but are both horribly hurt by what's played out.

This case has become about everything except its main purpose: this is a civil case for defamation. Not since the Romans turned Christian's to lions have publics watched so avidly, wanting the opposing side to be slaughtered.

It's been a PR dream for anyone whose clients are body language specialists or psychologists, as people pick over behaviour in court. I've even seen security experts wade in. It's been fabulous material for bloggers who survive on commentary, and YouTubers piecing snippets together. The papers are having a field day, and their opinionated columnists are doing what they are paid to do - express opinions.

But from my amateur but informed armchair running CAAGe, the Campaign Against Adult Grooming, I fear the shabby underbelly of all of this.

Firstly, for a long time, men have been looking for their 'poster child' - someone to stand up for abused men. Johnny Depp, successful, famous and good looking, is being adopted as just that. But this is hugely flawed. We will never know the truth, whatever the outcome of this case.

The men I've met who've been the wrong side of abusive relationships are like the women who have experienced the same. They try and hide the fact while they work out what to do. They hear the 'why didn't (s)he get out?' questions, the '(s)he would only hit me once, and I'd be off' comments. Getting out is complex, especially when a partner is controlling or violent. It's never that easy to unravel lives. Look at how nasty divorces become and add fear to the equation and we're getting somewhere near the right ballpark of complexity.

Maybe the silver lining is him explaining how it was for him trying to peace keep, but this is a man who lived in a mansion, with as many places to escape as he wanted. This is a man with some odd behaviours, largely caused by addiction. Whilst he certainly deserves some empathy, even sympathy, for the trials he's faced, I'm not convinced he's the poster child men need.

Secondly, we should believe victims when they tell us they are victims . We need to get to a point where victim isn't a dirty word. Both Heard and Depp claim to be victims, and I have no doubt whatsoever that both of them are.

But, debates about 'perfect victims' aside, this is a legal case about defamation - a litigation procedure open only to the very rich. Heard claimed abuse in a newspaper piece she wrote. Even though the case isn't about abuse, if Depp wins this case, how many victims will be afraid to speak up in future? How many magazines will still be prepared to print the stories of the brave women who stood up to speak about Epstein and Weinstein, or, on a far more prosaic level, the victims of grooming gangs?

The only people who will ever really know the truth are Depp and Heard, whatever the outcome of the trial.

The utter savagery of the commentary around Heard is enough to put anyone off speaking up. The sheer hypocrisy of those who share memes on mental health days 'I'm here for you', let's be nice to the poor loonies, is laid bare as Heard, like so many trauma victims, gets assigned mental health labels that paint her as unstable rather than having a natural reaction to being traumatised. Trust me, both the legal system and the mental health system are going to throw anyone's mental well-being off a tad!

Because, which neatly takes me to my third concern, 'the law is an ass'. Our legal systems are not about truth and justice, they're about winning and losing. We have watched expert after expert in this trial forced into 'yes/no' answers by clever lawyers, when the truth is a grey area somewhere in the middle, more complex than yes or no, in reality maybe just a probability. I'd want a lot more money than any of them got paid to be on the stand, but in all honesty, that's part of the problem. Experts need paying and their evidence is being brought out in favour of ONE party.

Heard claims that Depp violated her with a bottle. She has no evidence. Like most victims of sexual violence, she was hardly going to have videos of the event or witnesses. From the experiences of a woman I worked with last year, even if she'd kept the bottle, with fingerprints and all DNA material in place, the police would probably have said there was not enough evidence and have been told to get rid of it. She couldn't have proved that the bottle was held in that particular act, and there were no other witnesses in that bedroom.

Depp has recordings of her taunting him, confirming that she hit him, and it's clear that she was angry and unpleasant. But they are out of context. No-one is asking the questions. Why was he taping? Was it to defend himself from her or to frame her ahead of a divorce? What came before that moment? Was he doing something wrong, or was she? These questions don't get asked in our adversarial, win-lose system - and whilst these snippets might prove a particular point for one side, this partial information serves neither party in the end, and it certainly doesn't get us closer to the truth.

(Who famously remembers the Thatcher misquote, "I'd never buy a second hand car from this Government"? The full quote was that she'd buy a new one!)

I've been on a stand as witness on a number of occasions. (Not as an 'expert witness' I hasten to add.) Without the cameras. It's a lonely and frightening place. There is no support or encouragement. You're on your own and on the spot.

Truth is the victim of this adversarial legal system, and never has this been laid more bare. There will be one legal winner and one loser, until the next (third) case is won or lost, and we can all opine, again, to our hearts' content.

So why is it being broadcast? Reuters explains this succinctly in a fact check article on April 27 of this year: Why video streaming is permitted in the Depp-Heard trial but was not in Ghislaine Maxwell’s

As far as I can see, televising what is a civil rather than criminal case, where the person who claims to have been defamed (Depp) can sue the person who they claim did the defaming (Heard) for damages, is achieving nothing beyond creating a court of public opinion, which seems really to be what this case is, ultimately, about.

The fact that he claims she was the abuser, not him, seems to be a bit of a red herring when it comes to the defamation case, but is absolutely vital for this outer, unofficial court. Heard needs to understand the wider game, show us some tears if she wants to win us over.

Yet despite appearances, this isn't Hollywood. Heard and Depp, even if they are actors, are real people.

For victims of abuse, male and female, the case is triggering and harrowing. It may result in increased disbelief when people step forward to claim abuse, maybe even stop the media from highlighting the issue for fear of being sued.

For anyone hoping for truth or justice, it's an insight into why you probably shouldn't bother.

And for anyone who's been falsely accused (defamed) the telephone number sums of money being bandied about serve as a reminder that even well-paid ordinary people could not, normally, pursue a case like this to achieve justice.

We're being treated to a spectacle, but to my mind, it was a bad call allowing the case to be broadcast.