Known initially only as Baby P, 17-month-old Peter Connelly died in 2007 after suffering over 50 injuries, including a broken back, over an eight-month period. During that time, he was repeatedly seen by the London Borough of Haringey Children’s Services and National Health Service (NHS) health professionals.
Baby P’s mother, Tracey Connelly, along with her boyfriend, Steven Barker, and his brother, Jason Owen, were all jailed over the poor child’s death after she pleaded guilty to the charge. The three of them were jailed in 2009. Now, Connelly has been released from prison.
Back in March 2022, the Parole Board decided the mother was suitable for release, having rejected bids in 2015, 2017 and 2019. According to the BBC, she was considered to be at “low risk of committing a further offence” and probation officers and prison officials supported the plan.
It should be noted that Connelly was first released on licence in 2013, but was recalled to prison in 2015 for breaching her parole conditions. Furthermore, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab, who had asked the Parole Board to reconsider its decision to free her, described Connelly as “pure evil”—for a second time.
Understandably, the case of Baby P’s abuse caused shock among the public as well as in Parliament, partly because of the magnitude of the child’s injuries and also because he had lived in the London Borough of Haringey, North London, under the same child welfare authorities that failed seven years earlier in the murder of Victoria Climbié.
At the time, the borough’s child protection services were widely criticised. Following the conviction, three inquiries and a nationwide review of social service care were launched while the Head of Children’s Services at Haringey was removed.
Peter—whose real first name was only revealed in the conclusion of a subsequent trial of Connelly’s boyfriend on a charge of raping a two-year-old—received 60 visits from social workers, police and health professionals over the final months of his life. A series of reviews found there had been opportunities for officials to save the toddler’s life, if they had acted properly on the countless warning signs.
The trial painted Connelly as a woman who was at best uninterested in her child. Her home was described as disgusting—when police searched it, they found dog mess and human faeces on the floor and rat holes burrowed into the walls. They also reported that the bodies of dead chicks, mice and a dismembered rabbit were strewn around.
Of course, Connelly will be subject to restrictions in terms of where she goes and who she can contact. She has more than 20 licence conditions which include living at a specified address as well as being supervised by probation, wearing an electronic tag, adhering to a curfew and having to disclose her relationships.
Her use of the internet and phone will also be monitored, and she has been told she cannot go to certain places to “avoid contact with victims and to protect children.”
The messy details surrounding the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard lawsuit have permeated their way into the forefront of public discourse, namely social media, in what has undoubtedly become a trial on TikTok. Testimonies broadcast on the app by users along with controversial commentary, videos of ‘evidence’ found by supporters and disturbingly strange fan edits of the Pirates of the Caribbeanactor is what’s being called ‘coverage’ these days.
Though Heard’s abusive behaviour has been evidenced in court, the misogynistic mocking that has arisen in response to her sexual abuse testimony is worrying to say the least. Surfacing on the platform comes an insidiously dark trend that could set survivors back decades as users sexualise the description of her alleged assault for laughs. Unravelling the progressing societal attitudes towards abuse—largely in part to the #MeToo movement—women, particularly white women, have been creating videos listening to the TikTok sound and “trying to understand where Johnny Depp went wrong.”
Failing to understand where they themselves have gone wrong, this is, unfortunately, not the first wave of the trend. The alarming signs preceded this movement and began with Rolling Stone’s reports of domestic violence, whereby a TikTok audio—which sections a portion of Heard’s court testimony against Depp of physical violence—has been used as skit material. Users are recreating Heard’s description of the incident where she stated, “I was walking out of the bedroom. He slapped me across the face, I turned to look at him. And I said ‘Johnny you hit me. You just hit me’.”
In what could be the most notable example is a video that has been viewed over 16 million times. In it, a cat is used to placate the roles of both Depp and Heard and acts out the alleged slap made by the Fantastic Beastsalum against the Aquamanactress. The worst epithet of this TikTok torrent against Heard are actual couples recreating the scene in a mocking manner—with some even dressing as the pair. And this isn’t some sordid little corner of the internet. No, even some of TikTok’s most popular creators have participated in the acting challenge. With over 18,000 clips made in response to the sound, even users like @llilmaz (who have over 4 million followers) have jumped on the supposed ‘trend’.
Let’s say for argument’s sake, Heard’s testimony is falsified, this does not suddenly make the context of the claims not about abuse—that fact is still true. And it is this fact that should embarrass those making light of the very serious issue.
Following Rolling Stone’s reporting, the public pelting Heard is receiving took an even darker and more dramatic turn. In an audio that has since been removed from the platform, users filmed themselves reacting to the actress’ sexual assault testimony, in which she described being held against her will by the neck and her underwear torn off. Their response? “Trying to understand where ‘daddy Depp’ was wrong…”
Though the sound and respective videos are inaccessible for the most part, the emergence of such a trend in the first place is a terrifying result of a prevailing patriarchal concoction that most definitely will impact future survivors coming forward with their own testimonies. In perhaps what can be seen as some bizarre crossover into the world of true crime fanaticism, the unadulterated adoration of Depp—that sets him on some innocent, godly pedestal—is reminiscent of the trials of Ted Bundy and Richard Ramirez. But this time, they’re not just sitting on the back benches of the courtroom, they’re saturating social media in droves.
Now, we’re not calling Depp a serial killer here, nor are we denying his valid victimhood to violence at the hands of Heard but—and it’s an important but—he’s not entirely innocent either. His own victimhood does not suddenly negate the crimes he may have committed too. The so-called ‘attractiveness’ of Depp, much like white women’s attitudes to Bundy or Ramirez, has fed into a burgeoning hyper-sexualisation by female fans that distracts the public from real evidence and focuses on how ‘hot’ he is. Sexualising the alleged abusive acts (whether real or not) does nothing but belittle victims of sexual violence and play into the existing vicious tropes of ‘you know you wanted it’.
The ‘uglification’ of Heard that has been happening, on the other hand—whereby people have mocked her appearance, facial expressions and clothing—reenacts classic cartoon imagery: beautiful is good and ugly is evil, in turn, celebrating the sexual abuse TikTok audio because of Depp’s looks.
Maureen Curtis, the vice-president of criminal justice programs at the victim assistance organisation Safe Horizon, told Rolling Stone that the trends were “not surprising.” “When you have a celebrity, particularly one who’s as well-liked like Johnny Depp, accused [of violence], it makes it harder for a survivor to want to come forward, and to be believed,” she said. “People don’t want to believe a well-liked man [could] do things like this.”
While Heard’s abusive actions are, of course, inexcusable, the attitudes to male abusers of the past pale in comparison to the vitriol rallied against her—that is misogyny. Never before have we seen such a public and universal attack against a male abuser. Where are all the male-written think-pieces on supporting the victim when it comes to Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby or Jeffrey Epstein? But when a woman is accused of violence, then the entire society (male and female) form a mob with pitchforks and wood at their disposal. Even Roman Polanski, who was convicted of a sexual crime against a child, has been continuously celebrated in cinema—but Heard, now that’s real evil.
The unbridled support of Depp is less about him being the victim of violence specifically and more so crosses over in an evident duality of his privileged maleness. One: if he indeed is also a perpetrator of abuse then he is absolved among fans and his crimes ignored (read: ‘she’s probably lying’) and two: he is also a victim of a violence that is supported, coddled and celebrated for coming forward. In either category, or most likely both, the actor ultimately receives sympathy.
The opposite exists for Heard. As both the victim and the abuser, she is loathed beyond measure. And just like the ghosts of the cases from the past, we will look back in 20 years and wonder how in the world female fanatics of Depp behaved in 2022.
