Dawn Images

Hollywood star Johnny Depp appeared in a London court on Wednesday to hear his lawyer argue that Depp’s ex-wife had lied when she accused him of beating her in comments quoted by the tabloid newspaper the Sun.

Depp, the 55-year-old star of the Pirates of the Caribbean films, is suing the tabloid’s publisher, News Group Newspapers, and its executive editor Dan Wootton for libel over an article Wootton wrote in 2018 calling Depp a “wife beater”.

Depp himself attended the High Court for the first day of the pre-trial review. The trial proper is due to start on March 23 and last two weeks.

Both Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard accused each other of physical abuse during their relationship. Heard first made allegations in 2016, which Depp denied.

“One of them is lying and doing so on a grand scale,” said a skeleton argument submitted by Depp’s lawyers and distributed to journalists.

“It is a very important function therefore of this libel trial that these allegations are tested, and either proved or disproved.”