By Rob Harris
London: Matildas star Samantha Kerr has told a London court that police treated her differently because of the colour of her skin after a drunken incident in which she claims she and her partner were taken “hostage” by a taxi driver.
The 31-year-old, on trial for causing racially aggravated harassment to a British police constable during an incident in south-west London in the early hours of January 30, 2023, faced a full day of questioning at Kingston Crown Court on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT).
It is alleged that Kerr and her partner, US soccer star Kristie Mewis, 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 the Australian vomited, and repair costs for the vehicle’s rear window which was kicked in.
At the police station Kerr – who identifies as “white Anglo-Indian” – is alleged to have become “abusive and insulting” towards Constable Stephen Lovell, calling him “f---ing stupid and white”. Kerr accepts making the comments but denies that they amount to the charge.
A jury heard on Wednesday that despite Kerr’s fear she and her partner had been “kidnapped” and held “hostage” by the taxi driver, call logs showed that the driver had called police about their behaviour in the vehicle 10 minutes before Kerr attempted to contact emergency services by pressing the feature on her iPhone.
Asked by prosecutors if she still believed she and her partner were being “kidnapped”, Kerr said she did.
In a follow-up question, she was asked if she knew police had advised the taxi driver to bring the pair to a police station, to which she responded: “I do now.”
At the station, Kerr made several references to Sarah Everard, who was murdered by Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens in 2023, telling officers about a “girl in Clapham” who “got raped and killed”.
Lovell is alleged to have said: “Do you think a taxi driver, who is going to rape and kill you, would take you to a police station?,” to which Kerr responded “you’re sick”.
When asked why she said this, she told the court: “I thought he was making light of what had happened to us. I thought it was an antagonising comment”.
Kristie Mewis, fiancee of Matildas captain Sam Kerr, at court on Wednesday.Credit: AP
When asked about a further comment of “you’re literally a white privileged person”, she responded: “It was clear to me that he had no idea about the power and privilege he had in that moment or in life … he’s never had to think about what could happen to you as a female.”
Dressed in white, Kerr told the court that her and Mewis, who are expecting a baby boy in May and will marry in December, had discussed the need for the incident to not get out because it could damage the American’s chances of selection in the US team for the 2023 FIFA World Cup.
Kerr said under oath that it was Mewis who had “kicked out [the window] with her boot” as they attempted to flee the cab as it pulled in outside the police station. She said she’d become agitated when she told police “this is a racial f---ing thing” as they questioned her about the incident.
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.”
When asked about her comments towards Lovell, Kerr responded: “I had had a couple of drinks, mixed with tiredness, being in a scared and distressed state and [being] scared for my life 15 or 20 minutes before.”
When asked directly if she had hostility towards white people, she said: “Absolutely not”.
Sam Kerr arrives at court with her father, Roger Kerr.Credit: Getty Images
Kerr told the court they had been to dinner at Amazonico at London’s Berkley Square and shared a bottle of wine, before they headed to a friend’s birthday party nearby and a nightclub where they continued drinking for several hours.
She said she regretted the way she expressed herself but added: “I feel the message was still relevant”.
A phobia of taxis
Kerr, who was supported in court by her parents, told the jury she never used black cabs and preferred Uber because she deemed it to be safer as vehicles could be tracked.
Born in Perth, Kerr said she grew up hearing stories about how the Claremont serial killer could be a taxi driver, and that had stuck with her.
“I lived in a state where, for 30 years, there was actually a serial killer roaming that was thought to be a taxi driver. Everyone was talking about not getting in taxis,” she said.
In 2020, Bradley Robert Edwards was convicted of killing two women in separate abductions in Perth in the 1990s. Prosecutors at the time said Edwards lured the women into his work car, which looked like a taxi.
Kerr was asked about her upbringing in Australia and her experience with racism there and in the UK.
The Chelsea player said she had seen her father and brother – who are of Indian descent – treated differently because of the darker colour of their skin.
“At school, I experienced being in situations where teachers had instigated that I was the troublemaker, or had started trouble,” she told the court.
Kerr also said she had experienced it first-hand on social media and even in shopping centres where she had been “followed by a security guard” if she was not “dressed correctly”.
Footage from Lovell’s body-worn camera was previously played to jurors, in which Kerr tells him and Constable Samuel Limb that she and Mewis were “very scared” and “trying to escape” the cab when they damaged the vehicle.
Kerr told the jury she had put her head out of the window when she began to feel sick before the driver “rolled it up” and began to “drive dangerously”.
She said: “He accelerated and began to swerve in and out of lanes … we were getting thrown around.
“I couldn’t hear what he was saying. He was speeding up and stopping.”
But later under cross-examination, Kerr admitted she had no memory of the taxi driver, his ethnicity or his accent and said at no time did they have any meaningful communication. She also admitted to falling asleep before she woke up to vomit.
Prosecutors also questioned how reliable her account of the erratic driving was if both women, as she had earlier admitted, were standing up in the cab without seatbelts on.
‘Quite embarrassed’
Asked how she felt watching footage of her arguing with police officers, Kerr said: “It’s honestly really hard to watch myself act like that. I don’t normally act like that, so I’m quite embarrassed.
“I expressed myself poorly in that moment, for sure ... the point I was trying to get across was I felt that they were treating me differently and not believing me and treating me as the person who had done something wrong,” she added.
She also recounted how they first met after Mewis “slid into my DMs”, referring to direct messages on social media, prompting laughs from the public gallery and a quizzical look from Judge Peter Lodder.
Audio source: Sam Kerr interview with police, Kingston Police Station, January 31, 2023.
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