Amber Heard avoids trial in Australia over alleged smuggling of pet Yorkshire terriers

Importation of the dogs led to an international row after the Australian deputy prime minister threatened to euthanise the pets

Prosecutors in Australia have dropped a potential criminal case against Amber Heard over allegations that she lied to a court about how her pet Yorkshire terriers were imported into Australia in 2015.

The dogs (named Pistol and Boo) were allegedly smuggled into Australia in June of that year when Heard’s then-husband Johnny Depp was filming the fifth instalment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

Australia’s Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, a biosecurity watchdog, said the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions decided against prosecuting 37-year-old Heard for allegedly feigning ignorance about the nation’s strict quarantine regulations.

“Prosecution action will not be taken against… Heard over allegations related to her sentencing for the illegal import of two dogs,” the department said in a statement.

The case appeared to be settled years ago; in 2016 Heard pleaded guilty to making a false statement on her immigration card about the dogs and received a one-month good behaviour bond.

Prosecutors dropped more serious charges that the Aquaman actor illegally imported the dogs – a potential 10-year prison sentence.

However, during Depp’s 2020 libel lawsuit against The Sun, one of his employees told the UK’s High Court that Heard instructed him to “lie under oath” and pretend she did not know she was breaking the law by travelling with her pets.

Amber Heard and Johnny Depp in Australia (AAP)

The department had investigated discrepancies between what her lawyer told an Australian court in 2016 – when she admitted smuggling the dogs – and testimony given in London in 2020.

The false documentation charge carried a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a fine of more than 10,000 Australian dollars (£5,089). Magistrate Bernadette Callaghan sentenced Heard instead to a one-month good behavior bond, under which she would only have to pay a fine of AU$1,000 (£509) if she committed any offence in Australia over the next month.

The department told the Associated Press it collaborated with overseas agencies to investigate whether Heard had provided false testimony about her knowledge of Australia’s biosecurity laws and whether an employee had falsified a statutory declaration under duress of losing their job.

The department had provided prosecutors with a brief of evidence against Heard, but no charges would be laid.

After the situation received media attention in 2015, Australia’s deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce told a press conference: “Mr Depp has to either take his dogs back to California or we’re going to have to euthanise them. It’s time that Pistol and Boo buggered off back to the United States.”

Depp later joked with reporters at the Venice Film Festival he had “killed his dogs and ate them” following “direct orders from some kind of sweaty big-gutted man from Australia”.

Pistol and Boo became Heard’s property when the couple divorced in 2017.

In 2021, Heard revealed she had named her new dog after the Australian politician.

Additional reporting from the Associated Press