Johnny Depp has been denied permission to appeal 'wife beater' ruling

• British judges denied Johnny Depp's application, saying the original hearing "was full and fair."
• The court originally ruled there was "overwhelming evidence" supporting Amber Heard's allegations.
• Depp was suing the publishers of the Sun newspaper for labeling him a "wife beater."

Johnny Depp has been refused permission to appeal the UK High Court verdict that ruled against him in his libel case against the publishers of the Sun newspaper, which labeled him a "wife beater" in relation to his marriage with Amber Heard.

In last week's hearing, Depp asked the Court of Appeal to give him permission to contest the ruling with the goal of a retrial.

On Thursday, however, Court of Appeal judges denied Depp's application, saying that the original hearing "was full and fair" and that the trial judge "gave thorough reasons for his conclusions which have not been shown even arguably to be vitiated by any error of approach or mistake of law."

Part of Depp's argument for the appeal relied upon further evidence that Heard had not actually given away the $7 million she received in her divorce settlement that she said she was giving to charity.

At last week's hearing, Depp's barrister Andrew Caldecott QC said Heard's claim that she was giving this money to charity was a "calculated and manipulative lie" and "tipped the scales against Mr. Depp from the very beginning," The Guardian reported.

Lord Justice Nicholas Underhill denied the application to admit further evidence, however, and dismissed the idea that the trial judge was influenced by these "general perceptions."

"In the first place, he does not refer to her charitable donation at all in the context of his central findings," Underhill said, as reported by The Guardian. "On the contrary, he only mentions it in a very particular context … and after he had already reached his conclusions in relation to the 14 incidents."

Underhill continued: "We conclude that the appeal has no real prospect of success and that there is no other compelling reason for it to be heard. We accordingly refuse permission to appeal."

A representative for Heard said her camp was "pleased" but not surprised by the court's denial of Depp's application to appeal. "The evidence presented in the UK case was overwhelming and undeniable," the person told The Guardian.

The statement continued: "The verdict and lengthy, well-reasoned judgment, including the confidential judgment, have been affirmed. Mr. Depp's claim of new and important evidence was nothing more than a press strategy, and has been soundly rejected by the court."

In a statement given to Insider, Depp's lawyer Joelle Rich said the decision "further demonstrates that there are clear and objective reasons to seriously question the decision reached in the UK court."

Rich said Depp was now looking forward to "presenting the complete, irrefutable evidence of the truth in the US libel case against Heard where she will have to provide full disclosure."

Depp is suing Heard personally in the US over a 2018 Washington Post essay in which she wrote about being a domestic-abuse survivor. She did not name Depp in the essay.

A hearing for this trial was scheduled to take place in May but that has now been pushed back to April 2022.

The initial ruling from Judge Andrew Nicol came in November, three months after the high-profile court case. The ruling referred to "overwhelming evidence" supporting Heard's allegations, and Nicol said The Sun's lawyers had proved what the newspaper reported was "substantially true."

Depp was suing News Group Newspapers Limited and The Sun's executive editor, Dan Wootton, over reports in The Sun that labeled Depp a "wife beater."

Depp, who has not been charged with a crime over the allegations, has always denied any claims of abuse. During the trial, he counteraccused Heard of abusing him, which Heard denied.

NGN relied upon 14 instances of alleged domestic violence against Heard, and Nicol ruled in November that there was enough evidence to say 12 of these incidents did occur.

After the November ruling, one of Depp's solicitors, Jenny Afia, called Nicol's decision "as perverse as it is bewildering."

This decision fueled a career freefall for Depp. Shortly after Nicol's verdict, Depp revealed that Warner Bros asked him to resign from his role as Gellert Grindelwald in the "Fantastic Beasts" franchise. Mads Mikkelsen was soon cast in his place.

Meanwhile, supporters of Depp have challenged Heard's role in another Warner Bros franchise. A petition calling for Heard's removal from her role as Meera in "Aquaman 2" has now garnered over 1.8 million signatures.