Johnny Depp and ex-wife Amber Heard arrive at London's High Court for legal showdown. Video / AP
Johnny Depp instructed his staff to "grease" vet officials' hands so his pet dogs would be allowed into Australia without valid travel permits, a court was told.
Amber Heard claimed she sent an email on behalf of Depp asking an assistant to find a vet who could be "greased" to "alter a health document" to ensure the two Yorkshire terriers Pistol and Boo could be with him during the filming of the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean film.
But Heard claims that when their presence was revealed after they were photographed at a grooming salon, she was forced to shoulder the blame for smuggling them into the country in order to protect her husband's reputation.
An email from Heard was read to the High Court which asked her former assistant, Kate James, if she could find a vet who would "slightly alter a health document that has their [the dogs'] shots recorded... so they can all leave together".
The email added: "Do you have a vet you can grease?"
Heard told the court: "I sent it at Johnny's request, that's his language."
Heard alleged she was carrying out Depp's instructions. Photo / AP
Heard told the High Court it was Depp's decision to take the dogs to Australia, even if they didn't have the proper documentation, saying he was used to getting "around official rules" to get what he wanted.
Heard said: "Particularly with the dogs travelling, Johnny would tell me that it could just be taken care of and when I expressed to him that it wasn't in my hands... he would tell me 'just tell them to take care of it, just tell them to grease the f******'."
US Actress Amber Heard arrives at the High Court in London in London, Wednesday, July 22, 2020. Photo / AP
Depp's barrister, Eleanor Laws QC, put it to Heard: "You don't think there's anything at all wrong [with] getting a vet to slightly alter a health document?"
Heard replied: "Of course I do, but it wasn't always my choice. I didn't live in a relationship where I had a lot of choice."
The actress said that when the presence of the dogs in Australia was eventually discovered, in April 2015, she was forced to plead guilty to charges of animal smuggling, so as to protect Depp for the bad publicity that would have otherwise ensued.
She said: "We both filled out the same entry cards... we both filled out the same thing, yet I took the charges because if Johnny got charges it would have further compromised Pirates [Of The Caribbean], which was already compromised."
Pistol and Boo leaving Australia in 2015. Photo / Supplied
Heard said that Depp's lawyers had told her that "if I took the charges because I'm significantly less well-known, I had a lesser profile if you were in the press, that I would somehow make it so that his [Mr Depp's] job was less threatened than it already was".
She added: "I took the charges and I accepted that I filled out the form incorrectly and that it represented a falsehood."
Following her guilty pleas Depp joined Heard in making a video in which they apologised for trying to bring the dogs into the country in contravention of the country's strict laws to protect indigenous wildlife.
