Editor’s Desk: Is it really clear who the villain and victim is in the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard case?

I was a daily court reporter for four years in Perth, so I find a complex, compelling, confronting case where it’s one person’s word against the other an endlessly fascinating process. So it may seem weird when I say I was disturbed to be one of millions watching the soap opera train wreck that was the Johnny Depp v Amber Heard defamation trial unfold. At times, it just felt all kinds of wrong for this case — in which shocking allegations came from both sides — to be live streamed to the world and used as tabloid fodder and ammunition to put Depp up on a pedestal and to strengthen the witch-hunt against Heard. Don’t get me wrong. I did not and have not picked a side. By the sounds of it, both Depp and Heard were abusive and toxic to each other during their failed relationship, and there probably didn’t deserve to be any winner out of this. Let’s just say who knows where the truth lies in this whole sordid mess, given both major players have made careers out of acting? But what doesn’t sit right with me is this black-and-white villain and victim scenario. Does the fact Depp has a massive fan base and more power and influence than his ex-wife automatically make him the poor hard-done-by eccentric but harmless celebrity and Heard the vindictive, lying ex out for blood? Hypothetically, if Heard was telling the truth, this would be a prime example of victim-blaming at its most extreme. While Depp says he’s now “at peace” after the jury’s decision, Heard says she’s “heartbroken” for herself and other women. “It sets back the clock to a time when a woman who spoke up and spoke out could be publicly shamed and humiliated. It sets back the idea that violence against women is to be taken seriously,” she said in a statement. It also must be remembered that the London High Court, in a previous libel lawsuit launched by Depp against The Sun newspaper for a story that called him a “wife-beater”, ruled it was substantially true. What to make of this whole mess? Who knows? But if Heard isn’t lying, then I’m afraid society needs to have a long, hard look at itself. Have we really come that far, if we’re so blinded by celebrity?