Court to rule on whether Depp can appeal against libel judgement

JOHNNY DEPP must wait to find out whether he can bring an appeal against a damning High Court ruling that he assaulted exwife Amber Heard and left her in “fear for her life”.

Following a three-week trial in July last year, Mr Justice Nicol dismissed the Hollywood star’s libel claim against the publisher of The Sun, finding that an April 2018 column calling Mr Depp a “wife beater” was “substantially true”.

The judge ruled Mr Depp, 57, assaulted Ms Heard, 34, on a dozen occasions and put her in “fear for her life” three times.

The actor is now asking the Court of Appeal to grant permission for him to challenge the ruling, with the aim of having its findings overturned and a retrial ordered.

At the hearing, Mr Depp’s lawyers asked the court to consider fresh evidence relating to what they said was Ms Heard’s claim that she gave her $7m (£5.5m) divorce settlement to charity.

His barrister Andrew Caldecott QC told the court that claim was a “calculated and manipulative lie”.

But Adam Wolanski QC, representing publisher News Group Newspapers (NGN), said the new evidence Mr Depp wanted to rely on “would not have had any impact” on the result of the trial. At the conclusion of yesterday’s hearing, Lord Justice Underhill – sitting with Lord Justice Dingemans – said the court would give its ruling at a later date.

He said: “We are not going to reach an immediate decision today... we will make it very shortly.”

Mr Depp is embroiled in a separate libel battle in the US, having sued Ms Heard personally over a 2018 Washington Post opinion piece in which she claimed to be a victim of domestic abuse although she did not mention the actor by name.

The actor’s $50m (£35m) US case against Ms Heard was recently delayed until April 2022.

ORDERS NOT to resuscitate have been imposed inappropriately on patients on some occasions during the pandemic, a new report has said.

Do Not Attempt CPR orders (DNRs) are made by medics if it is decided that the trauma of CPR would be more detrimental to a patient than to allow them to die if their heart stops.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has said that some providers may have proposed “blanket” DNRs to certain groups during the pandemic, or made orders on people without their or their families’ knowledge.

Care providers said more DNRs were made in the first wave of the pandemic.

On March 16, 2020, 28 per cent of people in adult social care settings questioned by the CQC had a DNR in place, which increased to 36 per cent between March 17 and December 2020.

The increase was larger in nursing homes, 74 per cent of patients having a DNR before the pandemic, compared to 92 per cent in the first wave.

No guidance was given to medics that blanket DNRs should be made on any group because of the pandemic, and guidance was issued in the first lockdown by the British Medical Association reminding medics that such decisions were unacceptable.

The CQC has now called for health ministers to review the practice of giving DNR orders.

Rosie Benneyworth, chief inspector of primary medical services at the CQC said: ““It is vital we get this right and ensure better end of life care as a whole health and social care system, with health and social care providers, local government and the voluntary sector working together.”

A DHSC spokesperson said: “It is totally unacceptable for ‘Do

Not Attempt CPR’ orders to be applied in any kind of blanket fashion – this has never been policy and we have taken decisive action to prevent it from happening, working closely with the health and care sector to make this clear and asking the CQC to undertake this review.”