It’s nasty, uncomfortable to watch, messy and not what anyone asked for. No, it’s not the recently released latest instalment in the Fantastic Beasts franchise — which critics and fans hate so much it’s spurned a call to end all franchise blockbusters — but rather the court case in the US featuring former Fantastic Beasts star Johnny Depp and his former wife Amber Heard.

Heard and Depp were married in 2015 after meeting on the set of the film of Depp’s former friend and mentor Hunter S Thompson’s novel The Rum Diaries in 2012. Fifteen months after their marriage it was all over, with Heard filing for divorce and a restraining order, appearing in court in Los Angeles with a bruised cheek and alleging several instances of harassment and physical abuse at the hands of Depp...

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