Sam Kerr is no crook, so why is she being treated as one?

There is little doubt Matildas captain Sam Kerr made a goose of herself when she argued the toss with a London cop after throwing up in a cab during a post-match celebration of her hat-trick against Liverpool.

But when did being a goose become a criminal offence?

Australian football star Sam Kerr is fighting to have a charge of racially harassing a police officer thrown out of court.Credit: Getty Images

It’s claimed she called the cop who was dealing with her a stupid white bastard after Kerr allegedly refused to pay a surcharge to have the cab cleaned. It was a spectacular own goal.

She appears to have made a hat-trick of mistakes – throwing up, failing to pay the required fee and then getting lippy with the law.

The incident occurred on January 30, 2023, and she was charged by post nearly a year later, on January 21, for allegedly using racially aggravated words that caused alarm and distress to PC Lovell.

Penguins rarely argue.Credit: Stefan Christmann

PC Lovell was no doubt only doing his job according to the letter of the law. However, as a rule of thumb, a career in policing requires not becoming alarmed and distressed at robust verbal interactions. For those not so inclined, occupations such as librarian, museum curator or emperor penguin carer, await.

Sam Kerr is 167 centimetres and of slight build. She has no criminal history. The only person who should be frightened of Kerr, OAM, is a goalkeeper during a penalty.

She is a feisty, full footballer – a striker who didn’t strike – not a bikie with a knuckle duster.

The taxi driver took Kerr to Twickenham police station in busy London Road next to the excellent, family-run Greek Cook and Grill restaurant, in the hope of settling the dispute.

She would have been better off investing in a souvlaki than a slanging match – two skewers, homemade chips, dip and salad for £15.70 ($30). A bargain.

Souvlaki, the international food of peace.Credit: Eddie Jim

PC Lovell was not alone. Inside the 24-hour station were fellow police officers, batons, handcuffs and, in all probability, a pie warmer.

Twickenham recorded 15,352 crimes last year. Kerr’s three-word sledge is now alleged to be another. The station is down the road from the international Twickenham Stadium, meaning the local police would often deal with over-refreshed rugby supporters.

Not so long ago, someone in Kerr’s condition may have been put in a cell for four hours to reflect on life and then released without charge. Are we better off with court dates to deal with a brain fade?

It smacks of shenanigans that had some of our police (who could swear like pirates on the rum punch) charge people with offensive language and give sworn evidence they nearly fainted when hearing the F-bomb uttered in public.

In New York, the great columnist Jimmy Breslin exposed such fake outrage when a policewoman of Puerto Rican descent named Cibella Borges was sacked for posing for racy pictures (as a teenager before she joined the police) later published in a periodical named Beaver.

The magazine was purchased by a police officer (no doubt attracted to the wildlife title), who then having identified a colleague, handed it to multiple male police officers, all of whom chose to stare long and hard at the photos before turning their heads in horror.

The complaints led to a hearing and termination.

Breslin wrote, “The cop took the magazine to his sergeant. The sergeant was aghast. The sergeant gave the magazine to the lieutenant. The lieutenant was shocked. When Cibella was told about the magazine she went downstairs and found the lieutenant showing the magazine to a whole group of cops.

“The police department should have been proud of the pictures as they prove that at least one member of the force is in marvellous physical condition: most officers are in such deplorable physical shape that if called upon to pose for pictures they would first put on overcoats.”

Breslin’s caustic wit embarrassed senior cops. Borges was eventually reinstated, reaching the rank of detective sergeant before retiring.

Here in Victoria in the 1960s, the chief secretary, Sir Arthur Rylah, banned the book Lady Chatterley’s Lover, arguing you couldn’t possibly allow teenage girls to read such filth.

Rylah, who on occasions would refresh himself with a morning whisky, kept copies of Playboy in his desk drawer to admire models, often just out of their teens.

In 1969, his wife, Lady Ann, was found unconscious in the back garden of her Kew home with a fatal head injury.

Sir Arthur Rylah: Where there’s smoke.Credit: The Age

After the briefest of investigations, it was listed as a brain haemorrhage, leaving Sir Arthur free to marry his mistress a few months later.

To suggest that if Kerr called the policeman a stupid white bastard it is racially charged is just plain silly. Vilification is used against people who have been the victims of traditional oppression.

Yet case law in England suggests otherwise. A black man was convicted after telling two parking officers in Sheffield to get back “with your white uncles and aunties”.

Kerr has been charged with an offence serious enough to draw a maximum of two years’ jail. This is part of a drift where we make laws for bad behaviour by declaring it criminal behaviour. It is the cholesterol of the system, clogging the arteries of justice.

Kerr’s jury trial is set for February 2025 – two years after the event. It is listed to last four days over an alleged three-word slur. Jury trials are usually reserved for the most serious offences, not for slurring soccer players.

It is proof the British system of justice, here and there, has gone bonkers.

Victoria’s Victims of Crime Commissioner, Fiona McCormack, has produced a detailed report that shows the majority of victims are dissatisfied with the system and would not enter it again.

“Victims are asking for a criminal justice system that delivers justice for them,” she found.

If the criminal justice system were a business, it would have shut its doors years ago because its core customer group – the victims – hate it.

Victims are cross-examined, not to find the truth but to try and break them and their story.

Committal hearings are redundant and only force victims to tell their stories yet again. Cross-examinations that should take hours can take days and the ridiculous delays mean offenders are bailed, often to commit further crimes.

And still, we produce more laws to deal with bad behaviour when the system is failing to efficiently deal with serious crime.

At the football, for no apparent reason, a supporter turned and yelled at me, “What are you looking at, Skeleton Head?” Rather than being alarmed and distressed, what passed for my friends (quite rightly) fell about laughing.

Words reflect the user, not the recipient. If someone yells a bigoted slur at the footy, the majority see that person for what they are. A pathetic racist. Those who don’t are pathetic racists themselves.

We have progressed. Too slowly for sure, but we are moving. And it is community-driven, not forced by legislation.

We ban the Nazi salute, giving a tiny group of powerless right-wing fanatics what they crave. Attention.

In Europe, there is a history of evil, ultra-right wing political movements. Such modern reincarnations need monitoring.

The number of hard-core fascists in Victoria would be flat out having the numbers to make a footy team. Public vision of them “training” by hitting heavy boxing bags shows they would struggle to take on two angry nuns equipped with wooden spoons.

They would fade into obscurity if not for their greatest allies – the far left. When the failed fascists roll out to yell clichés, the far-left roll out to yell at them.

Clashes between neo-Nazis and counter-protesters last May.Credit: Justin McManus

The confrontation, not the Nazis, becomes newsworthy.

Indigenous former footballers Jimmy and Phil Krakouer have launched a class action over the racial insults thrown at them during their outstanding careers.

One thing is for certain, Jimmy was poorly treated in a way that cost him years of his life in a court where everyone is supposed to be equal.

John William Samuel Higgs was the biggest amphetamine producer in Australia. He knew and liked Jimmy (who was broke) and offered him an easy cash job to assist with a drug delivery to Western Australia.

Amphetamines produced by Higgs in Melbourne were packed in a Nissan Bluebird and transported to Western Australia.

In January 1994, police raided a Perth garage to find Krakouer and another man unloading 5.3 kilograms of amphetamines packed into 12 freezer bags. He was sentenced to 16 years.

The drugs were 5 per cent pure, having already been cut by Higgs.

Higgs eventually cut a deal as he cut his drugs. Despite an extensive criminal record, he was sentenced to six years and was free long before Krakouer.

In last week’s column, we took you to the police front lines and saw members of the public order response team deal with abuse that would make a dockworker blush.

Public order response team police outside a rave. They were not alarmed or distressed by the language.Credit: Darrian Traynor

And yet none of the team’s officers appeared alarmed or distressed. None required counselling or therapy such as finger-painting or listening to whale songs in a darkened room while inhaling Amazon rainforest incense.

Isn’t it time we concentrated on the main event and stop worrying about silly sideshows?

No one thinks Sam Kerr is a criminal. So why (unless her lawyer’s move to have the case chucked out as an abuse of process succeeds) is she to stand trial in a criminal court?

John Silvester lifts the lid on Australia’s criminal underworld. Subscribers can sign up to receive his Naked City newsletter every Thursday.