The actor Amber Heard has been ordered to face a Gold Coast court in November on charges of illegally bringing two Yorkshire terriers into Australia, violating biosecurity laws.
Heard, who is accused of bringing the dogs into the country by private jet in May while her husband, Johnny Depp, was filming the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, was not present in the Southport magistrates court on Monday when her lawyers obtained a two-month adjournment.
The magistrate, Jackie McGee, ordered Heard to appear again on 2 November on commonwealth offences of illegally importing animals into the country and producing a false document.
The crown alleges Heard hid the arrival of hers and Depp’s dogs, Pistol and Boo, from customs and falsified her passenger arrival card.
Heard’s barrister, Paula Morreau, of Ashurst lawyers in Sydney, told the court that because she was facing “simple offences”, the magistrate was empowered to grant an adjournment in her absence.
The incident came to international attention after Australia’s agriculture minister, Barnaby Joyce, publicly declared Pistol and Boo should “bugger off home”, giving the couple 48 hours to remove the dogs who would otherwise face being euthanased.
Depp took a shot at Joyce over the incident at the Venice film festival at the weekend, telling a reporter in a black joke: “I killed my dogs and ate them, under direct orders of some kind of, I don’t know, sweaty, big-gutted man from Australia.”
