By Rob Harris
London: Australian soccer star Samantha Kerr has denied in court that she was consciously using “whiteness as an insult” during a heated exchange with British police when she called one officer “stupid and white”.
The Matildas captain was on Thursday cross-examined by prosecutors at Kingston Crown Court, where she is on trial for causing racially aggravated harassment to police constable Stephen Lovell during an incident in south-west London in the early hours of January 30, 2023.
Kerr, 31, and her partner, Kristie Mewis, had hailed a black cab in Oxford Street in central London and headed to Kerr’s then-home in Richmond. They had been out drinking when they were driven to Twickenham police station by a taxi driver who complained that they had refused to pay clean-up costs after Kerr was sick and Mewis smashed the vehicle’s rear window.
Kerr was asked by prosecutors if she was using Lovell’s “whiteness as an insult” at the police station, where she is alleged to have become abusive as she told officers she believed the taxi driver had tried to kidnap the pair.
Asked if she was saying Lovell was “stupid because he was white”, Kerr said: “No.”
Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones, KC, then put to Kerr: “At the moment of expressing your hostility to him because of what you thought was his stupidity, you also chose to show hostility to him because of his whiteness.”
Sam Kerr leaves Kingston Crown Court on Thursday. Credit: Getty Images
“It’s not what I meant,” she said.
“It’s what you did, isn’t it?” he replied.
“It is what I did, yes,” Kerr said.
The prosecutor then asked Kerr: “What did his race have to do with anything?”
She replied: “I believed it was him using his power and privilege over me because he was accusing me of being something I’m not ... 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.”
Sam Kerr’s fiancee Kristie Mewis arrives at court to give evidence. Credit: AP
Kerr accepts making the comments but has pleaded not guilty to one count of racially aggravated harassment. Her lawyer has argued she was making a comment about power and privilege.
The court previously heard on Wednesday that Kerr had told police “this is a racial f---ing thing”.
When asked about these comments, Kerr said: “I believed they were treating me differently because of what they perceived to be the colour of my skin – particularly PC Lovell’s behaviour.”
“The way he was accusing me of lying, and later arresting me for criminal damage even though Kristie said it was just her [who smashed the taxi’s window]. At the time, I thought they were trying to put it on me.”
The court was played footage of Kerr waving her phone in the face of Lovell while in the police interview room, but denied under oath the police officer’s testimony that she was boasting about how much money she had as a professional footballer during the quarrel over paying the taxi driver for damage to his vehicle.
In footage shown in court, Sam Kerr is seen displaying her phone to the police.
She added on Thursday: “[It was] the way he was responding to me, cutting me off, names he was calling me, being dismissive.”
Her fiancee, a former United States international player, told the jury that Kerr was “speaking her truth” when she called a police officer “stupid and white” in the drunken late-night incident.
Mewis, who with Kerr is expecting a baby in May, accused police of “gaslighting” after the “very scary” incident in which the pair claim they were taken hostage after the taxi driver locked the doors and refused to stop the vehicle.
The West Ham midfielder broke down in tears as she recalled: “It was like nothing I’ve experienced.” Kerr was also seen wiping away tears as she watched on from the dock.
Asked about her partner’s allegedly “abusive and insulting” behaviour towards Lovell that night, Mewis said: “I think that in her moment she was speaking her truth in how she was feeling.
“Subconsciously she felt that she was being treated differently. I’ve seen Sam be treated differently,” she told the court.
When asked by Judge Peter Lodder to clarify what she meant by “her truth”, Mewis said: “I think that she has been treated differently and spoken to differently for her whole life and I think that she was feeling the same thing that she has felt before and the things that I have seen.”
Mewis said she felt “out of control” during the taxi ride when the pair were on their way home from a night out and “immediately felt fear for my life”.
“I didn’t know if it was a kidnapping or if we were going to crash … All of the horrible things you think about in your head; I didn’t know if that was going to happen.”
During cross-examination, prosecutors asked Mewis if she knew the taxi driver had claimed he was taking the pair to Twickenham police station after phoning emergency services about them.
She responded “no” and added: “I don’t know why you would drive that recklessly if you were taking us to a police station … why was he driving crazy? I don’t understand that part.”
Asked by Kerr’s barrister, Grace Forbes, to describe her partner, an emotional Mewis replied: “Sam is so loving, she’s so humble, she would help anybody … that’s one of the things I love about her so much.”
The court was told earlier in the trial that Kerr identifies as white Anglo-Indian. She said under oath she was about nine or 10 years old when she first witnessed racism directed at members of her family.
Her parents, Roger and Roxanne, as well as her brother Levi, were present in court again on Thursday, as they have been every day of the trial.
The trial continues.
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