Psychologist Dr Dawn Hughes, who was called upon by Amber Heard’s legal team to testify, has been asked about a knife she gave to Johnny Depp.
Depp, 58, is currently suing ex-wife Heard, 35, in a $50 million (£38.2 million) defamation lawsuit over abuse claims she made in a 2018 article in The Washington Post, despite not mentioning Depp by name in the op-ed.
The picture of the knife, which has been shown in court previously, was labelled with the words 'hasta la muerte' – 'until death' in Spanish.
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Heard smiled in court as Depp’s lawyer, Wayne Dennison, asked Dr Hughes if she spoke Spanish.
She replied: "un poquito," which translates to 'a little'.
Dr Hughes was also asked by Dennison if someone who was 'afraid for her life' would gift this to their partner, to which the psychologist said there's 'context'.
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“I believe that this is the knife that has a turquoise end and this was when Mr Depp was filming The Lone Ranger and he was in a turquoise phase," she said.
She added: "Miss Heard purchased this knife for Mr. Depp. She was engaged in a whole lot of denial and minimisation of the extend of violence in the relationship."
Speaking about the knife today, on 4 May, Heard said: "I had it engraved with the saying Johnny would say to me all the time, which I thought was it romantic. As funny as it is to say now."
Dr Hughes also testified that Depp refused a prenup agreement because 'the only way out of the relationship is death'.
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She said: "It was definitely a clinical cause of concern at the time that that phraseology was used."Dr Hughes has interviewed Heard multiple times for a total of 29 hours and said that Depp would force Heard to have oral sex with him when he was angry.
“There was a number of incidents of sexual violence reported in this relationship,” she said.
“These are documented early on…where when Mr Depp was drunk or high he threw her on the bed, ripped off her nightgown and tried to have sex with her.
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“There were times when he forced her to give him oral sex when he was angry, these weren’t in loving moments they were angry moments, moments of dominance, moments of him trying to get control over her.
“These incidents often happened in a drug-fuelled rage,” she said.
Dr Hughes said an alleged incident in Australia in March 2015 was 'one of the most severe instances of sexual violence that Ms Heard had to endure'.
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“When he was beating her and choking her and telling her ‘I’m going to f**king kill you…I hate you’…when he grabbed a bottle that was on the bar and penetrated her with that bottle,” she said.
Heard looked visibly distressed in the courtroom as the incidents were described.
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Topics: Amber Heard, Johnny Depp, US News