By Tamina Summersgill, WAVE Youth Ambassador 2025
In 2022, when I worked in a women’s refuge in London, the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard trial was unravelling. Depp accused Heard of defamation, following her op-ed in The Washington Post, in which, by referring to herself as a domestic abuse and sexual violence survivor, she (he alleged) implied he was a perpetrator.1
Among the women I supported at the time was Johanna, who had endured over a decade of extremely high-risk, haunting abuse at the hands of her family members, husband, and community.2 During our weekly key work sessions, she asked whether I’d been watching the trial. When I said no, she began describing the dedicated corner of TikTok that had sprung up to meticulously unpick it, and mostly, to mock Heard.
Johanna had been to court herself, and we’d often spoken about how traumatic it had been. Her demeanour had been read as cold during interrogation; she had shouted at times, missed court dates, and struggled to remember details. She told me that she was keeping up with the Depp v. Heard trial, and, crucially, about Heard: “I was just like her.”
While people made memes, hashtags, reels that ridiculed Amber Heard, Johanna recognised herself in her, in the very things that the internet tore to shreds. She felt relieved, knowing her experience hadn’t been exceptional, yet also exasperated as she realised that, perhaps, only other survivors might fully understand and believe a woman in the dock.
Before the verdict had even been declared in Depp’s favour, the online response had undeniably revealed how people perceive women who come forward. It excelled in demonstrating the stigma survivors face, how they are intimidated into silence, and that society is on the side of powerful men. For those working in violence against women and girls (VAWG), none of this bias is news and, most importantly, it can fuel a productive anger as you witness it. When I found out Johanna was watching the trial, it put into perspective who could be watching.
Johanna wasn’t on the fence about returning to court. But how many victims/survivors of VAWG are? How many women watched that trial, or even heard about it, and, understandably, were persuaded that it wasn’t worth the scrutiny?
If I’d been working frontline this year, I think the Pelicot trial would have enabled powerful, transformative discussions with clients. At the end of 2024, Dominique Pelicot stood trial for crimes that, over the course of a decade, involved drugging his wife, Gisèle, and inviting 51 men to rape her while she was unconscious, filming the assaults.3
Beyond the sheer severity of the crimes, the trial stood out for two striking reasons. Firstly, the video evidence recovered from Pelicot’s laptop largely removed the “he-said-she-said” dynamic that so often plagues sexual violence trials. Secondly, and crucially, Gisèle Pelicot renounced her right to anonymity and supported the trial’s public status.
The case’s high profile looked entirely different to the Depp v. Heard trial. The prevalent (social) media narrative did not serve to ridicule the survivor, but to praise her. She faced supportive, applauding crowds when arriving and leaving court, and has since been lauded as a symbol of feminism, of the fight against VAWG, not least because of her decision to make her name and face public. Her rationale for this: shame must change sides.4
Gisèle Pelicot’s experience refreshed the feminist discourse in France on: how do we treat victim/survivors? Do men understand consent? Do they care? How deep-rooted and prevalent is the culture of machoism and misogyny in which these crimes festered?
What would the conversation with my client, Johanna, have been like had it taken place this year, centred on this trial instead? Could this case have emboldened her? Perhaps her trial had been traumatic, but reporting and holding perpetrators accountable had the potential to shake up how we talk about survivors. Wasn’t that promising?
Ultimately, the dichotomy of these two trials reveals several truths about how justice systems treat survivors. The first concerns the decision to allow broadcasting. Who does this benefit?
The Depp v. Heard trial took place in Fairfax Court, Virginia. This court, in this State, had allowances around the filming of trials.5 This is at the judge’s discretion. In this case, Judge Azcarate permitted filming, finding no “good cause not to”. Heard’s team attempted to appeal this decision – while Depp’s encouraged it, for “transparency”.6 It’s been argued that Depp’s legal team’s decision to raise the complaint in Virginia was strategic.7
Whilst it’s difficult to quantify the influence of the filming, and the ensuing overwhelmingly loud support for Depp online, on the verdict, it certainly appears that the presence of cameras in the courtroom did not disadvantage him.
What, then, of the Pelicot case? Is publicising trials like this worth the power it could return to survivors like Gisèle Pelicot and the momentum it could give to calls for legislative change?
The fact is, most likely, that Gisèle Pelicot’s nerve to share her identity and support public coverage were exceptionally impactful because of the undeniability of the crimes. The evidence at hand cast away any doubt that she’d been subjected to unspeakable abuse.
The outcome of broadcasting a trial still rests, problematically, on how individual survivors “perform”. It feeds into a problematic tendency to place the “right” kind of victim/survivor with right kind of behaviour on a pedestal, often at the expense of those who aren’t as “likeable”. Whether they are treated with dignity by viewers is all too dependent on the case itself, and their demeanour.8
Gisèle Pelicot’s trial was the exception, perhaps. Otherwise, allowing high-profile coverage, especially against the alleged victim/survivor’s will, feels like opening Pandora’s box. There’s no telling how brutally the trial will be dissected, how relentlessly partakers will be mocked.
Secondly, in the broader sense, do we think by allowing this practice, are justice systems sending the right message to victim/survivors watching? Do we think the way we allow VAWG trials to be sensationalised and become a spectacle shows that institutions actually care? The willingness to take the risk of victim/survivors facing backlash, in the name of transparency, speaks volumes of how seriously we take their trauma.
Finally, not only is it poor signalling, but it’s in direct contradiction with some of the frameworks established by international bodies to protect survivors. The Istanbul Convention, the EU Victims’ Rights Directive, and the UN Guidelines for Justice emphasise survivors’ safety, dignity, and privacy as a priority. Is broadcasting such trials not in conflict with that?
There are a patchwork of measures being adopted across Europe to protect survivors from the additional harm trials can trigger: trauma-informed questioning, pre-recorded testimonies; adapted training for court staff. Some court systems have been developed to best oversee VAWG trials. The Specialist Domestic Abuse courts in the UK are a good example of this. They adopt a coordinated community response and multi-agency approach, emphasising that survivors’ needs are met in and around the proceedings, that risk assessments and safety planning are thorough, and information-sharing is effective.
Yet, we can single these examples of good practice out because they remain rare exceptions. The good news they represent makes far fewer ripples through the media, and we are left with sensationalised trials at centre stage. And as long as any justice system lets such trials define VAWG narratives, they are failing survivors.
Author Bio:
Tamina Summersgill was raised in London, in a half-French, half-English household. As an undergraduate, she worked at a reputed London-based organisation, Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse. She also volunteered at the National Alliance of Women’s Organisations, and worked on feminist projects at her university. From 2020 to 2024, Tamina worked at the UK’s largest domestic abuse organisation, Refuge (a WAVE member). She is now undertaking a masters in public administration, with a dedicated focus on social justice and human rights, hoping to tackle systemic enablers of gender-based abuse.
References
- Jacobs, J., & Bednar, A. (2022, June 1). Johnny Depp Jury Finds That Amber Heard Defamed Him in Op-Ed. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/01/arts/depp-heard-trial.html
↩︎ - The client’s name has been changed to protect her anonymity.
↩︎ - Gisèle Pelicot returns to court after trial made her an icon—And tore her family apart. (2025, October 4). https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg4l80gz7eo ↩︎
- Gisèle Pelicot: How one woman shook attitudes to rape in France. (2024, December 18). https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd75v8eqz44o ↩︎
- Virginia. (n.d.). The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Retrieved 22 November 2025, from https://www.rcfp.org/open-courts-compendium/virginia/ ↩︎
- Maddaus, G. (2022, May 27). Why Was Depp-Heard Trial Televised? Critics Call It ‘Single Worst Decision’ for Sexual Violence Victims. Variety. https://variety.com/2022/film/news/johnny-depp-amber-heard-cameras-courtroom-penney-azcarate-1235280060/
↩︎ - Finley, J. (2021, November 24). How the Depp v. Heard Trial Might’ve Been Prevented—And Why the Effort Failed. Northern Virginia Magazine. https://northernvirginiamag.com/culture/2021/11/24/slapp-laws-virginia/; Lewis, J. (2022, May 20). ↩︎
- Depp’s Choice of Virginia Trial in Heard Lawsuit Shows Strategy | Jeff Lewis Law, APC. https://www.jefflewislaw.com/depps-choice-of-virginia-trial-in-heard-lawsuit-shows-strategy/ ↩︎
Images sourced from Wikimedia Commons. Illustrations of Gisèle Pelicot by Watercikova (CC BY 4.0 and CC BY-SA 4.0). Photo of Amber Heard by Gage Skidmore, cropped (CC BY-SA 2.0). Graffiti photo “Amber Heard – We Support You” by Anne65 (Public Domain, CC0).
