‘The Johnny Depp Case Is Dangerous For Survivors Of Domestic Abuse’

The case of Johnny Depp versus The Sun – where Depp is suing The Sun’s publisher, News Group Newspapers (NGN) and The Sun’s executive editor, Dan Wootton, over an article published in 2018 that referred to the film star as a ‘wife beater’, has provided a slow and steady drip of gossip and famous faces for us to feast over.

Normally, I am as guilty as the next person of tuning in to such big court events to hear all the juicy details, and with the likes of Winona Ryder, Paul Bettany and Vanessa Paradis in the cast, the 1990s teenager in my head should be fascinated by the details. However, I am finding myself increasingly maddened by what is being reported from the court room.

I do not think a libel case - where Amber Heard’s life, honesty and behaviour seems to be on trial even though she’s not even part of the case - is the best place to be spotlighting a discussion on domestic abuse. Amber has taken no part in bringing this case, she has no control over what is being written in newspapers and has no control over the case at all. She is merely a witness in a story about her life. She has no control over any of this.

Yet, everyday we’ve heard claims about how much she drank, what a difficult personality she had, how she used to start arguments - as if any of this is relevant to the question of whether she was abused or not. It isn’t.

I was recently appointed the Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding and I knowdomestic abuse cases are rarely cut and dry, they are, in my six years of experience working in a women’s refuge before I became an MP, complex. There is often claim and counter claim, there is often elements of erratic behaviour by all involved.

Victims of abuse are not all frail women cowering in a corner just waiting for a beating. I have met very successful victims, who are leaders in their field, who have been horribly beaten and abused, and when they have spoken up about it have been met with judgements like, ‘someone like you would never put up with that abuse though.’

I have met police officers who have been beaten and raped in their homes; who have been expected to have known better how to break free because of their job. When my colleague Rosie Duffield, the Labour MP for Canterbury, stood in the House of Commons and talked about how she - a member of Parliament, a woman with power - had been coerced and abused, she opened the eyes of many people about what a victim can look like.

I do not know what happened in the lives of these two celebrities and I make absolutely no judgement on the facts of the case or the alleged behaviour of either party. However, some of what has been said in the Depp case and then reported in our papers has suggested that a person who drinks or is argumentative couldn’t be abused. That victims all have to be one type of person with one sort of behaviour. This is just not my experience.

Victims are repeatedly told by their perpetrators that no one will believe them because ‘everyone knows they are mad’; ‘no one likes them’, or that they are a drunk. It is dangerous if victims currently living in fear have these misconceptions confirmed all over our newspapers and the internet.

The way in which abuse is reported repeatedly fails victims – so it really matters that we send the right message now. For example, when a husband kills his wife, we will often see headlines that suggest a ‘normally loving father’ had a moment of rage when he killed his partner. The reality is that those who kill in domestic violence cases have usually been abusing their partner for many years. It is not a moment of rage, it is the end of a reign of terror. Things are rarely as simple as the news reports suggest.

Of course, men and those in same-sex relationships can be victims of domestic and sexual abuse too and the more we try to paint in our heads the idea of the ‘ideal victim’ and the ‘obvious perpetrator,’ the greater a disadvantage they will be at if they try to speak up and get help.

I am all for the gossip of Hollywood parties, and even a bit of whose wearing what on the red carpet, but when it comes to discussing the nature of domestic abuse, this Hollywood case has left me cold. Anyone can be a victim of domestic abuse, no matter if they drink, no matter what they wear, no matter what their job is, no matter if they stayed or if they smiled for photos and had happy moments too.

I’m worried this sends a message to victims of abuse that no one will believe them unless they are appear angelic. Victims don’t always conform to our ideals, nor should they. Let that be the message that rings out from this.

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