By Rob Harris
London: A jury has retired to consider its verdict in the trial of Australian soccer star Samantha Kerr, who is charged with racially abusing a British police officer during a drunken late-night altercation two years ago.
The Matildas captain accepts calling Constable Stephen Lovell “f---ing stupid and white” during an incident in south-west London in the early hours of January 30, 2023, but denies that it amounted to racially aggravated harassment.
Matildas player Sam Kerr (right) arrives at court with fiancee Kristie Mewis on Monday.Credit: AP
For a guilty verdict, the jury must decide that Kerr intended to cause Lovell harassment, alarm or distress; that he felt any of these emotions; and that the offence was racially aggravated.
Kerr, 31, and her fiancee, fellow soccer player Kristie Mewis, had been out drinking when they were driven to Twickenham police station by a taxi driver. The black-cab driver had called police during their journey home, telling them the pair had become abusive and refused to pay clean-up costs after Kerr was sick.
Mewis later kicked out the vehicle’s rear window because she said she feared they had been kidnapped.
Barrister Grace Forbes, defending Kerr, gave her closing argument on day six of the trial at Kingston Crown Court, describing the conduct of police that night as “completely unacceptable” because they failed to take the claims of the two women about the taxi driver’s alleged dangerous driving and false imprisonment seriously.
Forbes told the court the first “20 vital minutes” of Kerr and Mewis’ encounter with police were never captured on camera.
“Two individuals went straight up to a marked police car looking for help in a state of distress. How and why did we go from that to what was an utterly unproductive, heated argument?” she said.
“It seems that no one thought that it was worth putting on their body-worn footage when they saw a woman climbing through a broken window, when they were making allegations of false imprisonment.”
Forbes also cast doubt on Lovell’s claims he was impacted by being called “stupid and white”, noting that no other officers “in that room claimed to feel impact”.
She warned the jury to treat the “one-dimensional image” they had been presented with of a “drunk and angry woman” with caution. She said the prosecution had played footage of Kerr saying “f---ing stupid and white” to, in part, “capitalise on the shock factor” and wear them down after “hearing those words time and time again”.
“What cannot be captured on camera was what was going on in Samantha Kerr’s head,” she said. “Intention is very much in dispute.”
Forbes said some of Kerr’s behaviour, such as mentioning lawyers during the exchange, could be compared to “a puffer fish blowing itself up” to feel more secure.
During the trial, Kerr denied using “whiteness as an insult” and explained: “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.”
The taxi driver, who both Kerr and Mewis said they believed might have been taking them “hostage”, has remained anonymous throughout the trial and was not called to provide evidence.
Speaking to the jury during her closing remarks, Forbes said: “No consideration appears to have been given that the driver could have done what two women said he did and still ended up at the police station … even if you are drunk, you can still be the victim of a crime … no wonder the police have never heard from the driver again.”
Kerr, one of the sport’s biggest and most recognisable stars, has been recovering from an anterior cruciate ligament injury sustained during a training camp in Morocco a year ago.
A striker with Chelsea in the English competition, she has been instrumental in the club’s success since joining in 2019. In that time, it has won the Women’s Super League five times and the Women’s FA Cup three times. She has scored 99 goals in 128 matches for the club.
The jury deliberated for just over an hour before being sent home by Judge Peter Lodder. He said he wanted a unanimous verdict but could, later, consider a majority verdict if he was content enough deliberation had taken place.
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