Amber Heard accused of ‘stealing’ PA’s rape story

Amber Heard’s former personal assistant has accused the actress of “twisting” her own account of a machete-point rape for “her own use”, in explosive evidence on the seventh day of Johnny Depp’s libel claim against The Sun newspaper.

Appearing by videolink from Los Angeles yesterday, Kate James claimed Ms Heard, 34, had “stolen” her story of being “violently raped” in Brazil almost three decades ago.

In her witness statement, Ms James said she discovered the Aquaman actress had “stolen my sexual violence conversation with her and twisted it into her own story to benefit herself.

“This of course caused me extreme distress and outrage that she would dare to attempt to use the most harrowing experience of my life as her own narrative.”

Ms James said she was giving evidence in Mr Depp’s case against the tabloid’s publisher, News Group Newspapers (NGN), because she took “offence” at Ms Heard’s actions.

NGN’s barrister Sasha Wass QC suggested Ms James had been

“I’m a sexual violence survivor and that’s very, very serious”

“influenced” by Mr Depp, 57, and his associates and “encouraged” to give “vicious evidence” against Ms Heard.

Ms James replied: “I’m here for my own reasons... I’m a sexual violence survivor and that’s very, very serious to take that stance if you are not one and I am one.

“That’s the reason I’m here, because I take offence.”

Ms James, who worked for Ms Heard between 2012 and 2015, said her former employer would send a “barrage of drunk text messages between the hours of two and four in the morning... on an almost daily basis”, describing the messages as “abusive”.

She accused Ms Heard of deleting all the “abusive” texts after the actress terminated her employment.

Actor Johnny Depp arrives at the High Court in London