Depp v Heard: the unreal story extract chapters 1-2

READER NOTES
Johnny Depp’s residences
Aside from his European homes, Depp owns an island in the Bahamas
and a number of properties on Sweetzer Avenue in Los Angeles. During
the period he was in a relationship with Amber Heard, Depp also owned
all five penthouses at the Eastern Columbia Building (ECB) in downtown
LA. These penthouses shared an outdoor pool and had three internal
levels: main, mezzanine and upper.
Amber’s friend Raquel ‘Rocky’ Pennington lived for a time in
Penthouse 1 with her boyfriend Josh Drew. Depp’s childhood friend
Isaac Baruch lived in Penthouse 2. Depp and Heard’s main home together
was in Penthouse 3 and Whitney Heard lived for a time in
Penthouse 4. Penthouse 5 was mainly used for storage. A guard shack
with access to the main corridor was situated adjacent to Penthouse 5.
PH1 and PH2 are self-contained, but PH3, PH4 and PH5 are connected
on their upper levels by adjoining doors, which means (if you have the
right key), you can move from PH5, through PH4, to PH3 without going
into the main level corridor.
To make this easier to understand there is a floorplan of the main
level of the ECB penthouses at the beginning of The Phone Incident
chapter.
Footnotes and sources
Copious academic footnotes can really disrupt a reading experience so
I have tried to limit my footnotes to narrative asides. If you want to
read my book for research purposes and/or check on each specific stated
fact, please buy the ebook edition of Depp v Heard: the unreal story
which links quotes and sections of text (where possible) to the relevant
online source. There’s a general note on sources at the back of the book.
Legal terms and lawyers
I try to explain many of the important legal terms as we go along, but
it might be useful to flag the following up front: libel is the act of publishing
something defamatory. Both The Sun’s article about Johnny
Depp in the UK and the Washington Post article by Amber Heard were
alleged to be defamatory. In the UK we tend to call these cases libel
actions, in the US they tend to be called defamation actions. They are
essentially the same thing. By the same token, barristers, solicitors and
attorneys are all types of lawyer. Generally speaking, barristers and solicitors
work in the UK, with solicitors working behind the scenes and