Chelsea and Australia striker Sam Kerr is on trial accused of racially aggravated harassment after a heated exchange with police. Kerr denies using 'whiteness' as an insult, claiming she was expressing the power and privilege police officers had compared to her own fear during a taxi ride.
CHELSEA AND Australia striker Sam Kerr told a court Thursday she did not use “whiteness as an insult” in a heated exchange with police during which she called one officer “stupid and white”. Kerr is on trial charged with causing racially aggravated harassment to police constable Stephen Lovell during an incident in London in the early hours of 30 January, 2023.
It is alleged that Kerr, 31, and her partner, West Ham midfielder Kristie Mewis, had been out drinking when they were driven to a police station by a taxi driver who complained they had refused to pay clean-up costs after one of them vomited and that one of them had smashed the vehicle’s rear window. At the police station, Kerr, who is mixed race, is alleged to have become “abusive and insulting” towards Lovell, calling him “stupid and white”. While on trial at Kingston Crown Court on Thursday, Kerr was asked by prosecutors if she was using Lovell’s “whiteness as an insult”.“I was trying to express that due to the power and privilege they had they would never have to understand what we had just gone through and the fear we were having for our lives ,” she said.The court heard on Wednesday that Kerr had told police “this is a racial… thing”. When asked about those comments, Kerr said: “I believed were treating me differently because of what they perceived to be the colour of my skin — particularly PC Lovell’s behaviour.” Kerr had previously told the court the pair were “trapped” in the back of the taxi and that they had tried to open the doors and windows multiple times but they remained locked. Mewis broke down in tears on the witness stand on Thursday as she said she “felt fear for my life” during the drive and accused police of “gaslighting” the couple. When asked by Kerr’s defence counsel about how police treated the pair after the incident, Mewis said: “PC Lovell was immediately dismissive. He wasn’t believing what we were saying. “We were saying we had been taken against our will, we couldn’t get out and was driving like crazy… he was dismissive in a way in which he didn’t want it to be true.“It felt a little bit like gaslighting … the story repeated back was different or they were manipulating it back onto us.”Mewis, who is white, said she had seen her partner treated differently in the past.“Subconsciously she felt that she was being treated differently. I’ve seen Sam be treated differently.” Kerr made her debut for current Women’s Super League champions Chelsea in 2020. She is currently out of action with a knee injury. In November, Chelsea denounced “unacceptable and hateful homophobic” abuse after the couple announced Mewis is pregnant with their first child.
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