LONDON (AP) — Chelsea forward Sam Kerr allegedly called a police officer “stupid and white” a jury heard on Monday.
Kerr, one of the best women’s soccer players in the world, is on trial charged with causing racially aggravated harassment to Metropolitan Police officer Stephen Lovell in south-west London in the early hours of Jan. 30, 2023.
The Australian captain, who is also her country’s all-time leading scorer, is alleged to have become “abusive and insulting” towards Lovell.
Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones KC told a Kingston Crown Court jury that Kerr and her partner, West Ham midfielder Kristie Mewis, had been out drinking when they were driven to Twickenham Police Station by a taxi driver. The driver complained the passengers refused to pay clean-up costs after one of them was sick and one of them smashed the vehicle’s rear window.
Footage from Lovell’s body camera was played to jurors, and Kerr tells Lovell and police officer Samuel Limb that she and Mewis were “very scared” and “trying to escape” the cab when they damaged the vehicle.
Kerr and Mewis appeared intoxicated and distressed, with Mewis visibly crying.
The 31-year-old Kerr can also be heard telling the two police officers, “This taxi driver held me and her hostage for about 15 minutes. I was like, ‘Please, let us out and I will pay whatever you want.'
“We were begging to get out of there. We were trying to escape - we were trapped. You have to understand the emergency that both of us felt. What do you expect us to do as women in that situation?”
In the footage, both soccer players also accuse the officers of believing the taxi driver’s version of events over their own.
Lovell told the jury that Kerr’s comment that he was “stupid and white” made him feel “upset.”
He is to be cross-examined by Kerr’s lawyer Grace Forbes when the trial resumes on Tuesday.
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The Associated Press
