Australian prosecutors have dropped a possible felony case towards actor Amber Heard over her smuggling her two Yorkshire terriers into the nation eight years in the past.
Heard confronted allegations she lied to a court docket about how her pet dogs, Pistol and Boo, entered the nation in 2015 when she was staying within the Gold Coast together with her then husband Johnny Depp.
The couple grew to become embroiled in a high-profile biosecurity controversy after they stayed in Australia whereas Depp was filming the fifth film within the Pirates Of The Caribbean collection.
But on Wednesday Australia’s Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, a biosecurity watchdog, mentioned the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions had determined towards prosecuting Heard, 37, for allegedly feigning ignorance in regards to the nation’s strict quarantine rules.
“Prosecution action will not be taken against … Heard over allegations related to her sentencing for the illegal import of two dogs,” it mentioned in an announcement.
The division had investigated discrepancies between what Heard’s lawyer informed an Australian court docket in 2016 – when she admitted smuggling the dogs – and proof given in a London court docket in 2020 when Depp, now 60, was suing The Sun newspaper for libel over allegations of home violence towards his former spouse.
Heard had pleaded responsible in 2016 at Southport Magistrates’ Court in Queensland to offering a false immigration doc when the couple took their dogs into Australia in a chartered jet a yr earlier.
Prosecutors dropped extra critical expenses that Heard illegally imported the dogs – which carried a possible 10-year jail sentence.
The false documentation cost carried a most penalty of a yr in jail and a nice of greater than 10,000 Australian {dollars} (£5,000).
Magistrate Bernadette Callaghan sentenced Heard as an alternative to a one-month good behaviour bond, underneath which she would solely need to pay a nice of 1,000 Australian {dollars} (£500) if she dedicated any offence in Australia over the next month.
Heard’s lawyer, Jeremy Kirk, informed the court docket that his consumer by no means meant to lie on her incoming passenger card by failing to declare she had animals together with her. In reality, he mentioned, she was merely jetlagged and assumed her assistants had sorted out the paperwork.
But a former Depp worker, Kevin Murphy, informed London’s High Court in 2020 that Heard had been repeatedly warned she was not permitted to take dogs to Australia.
But she insisted, and later pressured a workers member to take the blame for breaking quarantine legal guidelines.
The division had supplied prosecutors with a quick of proof towards Heard, however no expenses can be laid.
When the dogs have been found in May 2015 following a visit from the couple’s rented Gold Coast mansion to a canine grooming business, Depp and Heard complied with a government-imposed 50-hour deadline to fly them again to the United States or have them euthanised.
Pistol and Boo grew to become Heard’s property when the couple divorced in 2017.
Representatives for Heard have been contacted for remark.
