Chelsea star Sam Kerr was cleared of causing racially aggravated harassment by a jury at Kingston Crown Court on Tuesday after calling a Metropolitan Police officer “stupid and white”.
During the trial, the Australian international accepted that she had made such remarks but denied using whiteness as an insult.
She said: “I believed it was him using his power and privilege over me.”
The incident occurred in the early hours of 30 January 2023, when Kerr and her partner, West Ham player Kristie Mewis, had been out drinking and got into a taxi.
Kerr vomited from within the vehicle, prompting an argument with the driver over the pair paying a clean-up fee.
Mewis then broke the back window of the taxi, causing the driver, who remains unnamed, to take them to Twickenham Police Station.
Mewis said that they were “hostage” in the taxi and that they were “trying to escape” as the driver refused to let them go for 15 minutes.
The pair told officers at the station that they were unsafe and fearful for their wellbeing in the taxi, but later said they felt like they weren’t listened to by police. Kerr said that she was “antagonised” by the three officers she spoke to including PC Stephen Lovell.
“[Police] were treating me differently because of what they perceived to be the colour of my skin, particularly PC Lovell’s behaviour,” Kerr told the court.
At the station, PC Lovell’s body camera picked up Kerr calling him “stupid and white”, a video which was shown as evidence during proceedings.
Kerr was then arrested by PC Lovell for aggravated racial harassment and criminal damage as he mistook Kerr for having broken the taxi window.
In court, Kerr said: “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.”
The prosecution argued that Kerr’s remark was a deliberate attempt to harass PC Lovell, who told the court that the comment “upset” him.
However, PC Lovell only complained of the comment having an effect on him in his second statement to the Crown Prosecution Service, provided nearly one year after the incident.
Kerr said in a statement after the verdict: “While I apologise for expressing myself poorly on what was a traumatic evening, I have always maintained that I did not intend to insult or harm anyone, and I am thankful that the jury unanimously agreed.”
