Full arrest video released as Sam Kerr denies using 'whiteness' as insult

Australian soccer star Sam Kerr denied using a London police officer's "white identity" as an insult while being cross-examined in court. The full version of the video of the police interaction with Kerr has been released. Ms. Kerr was questioned as to why she used the words "stupid and white" to Police Constable Stephen Lovell. She admitted in court that she used his "white identity" to express hostility towards him during a taxi dispute in London in 2023.

Last year, Kerr pleaded not guilty to the charges. During the high-profile trial, the Australian soccer star and her fiancée both cried. Her partner, Kristie Mewis, sobbed as she described feeling her life was threatened on the night they believed they were being held hostage by a taxi driver. In the dock, Ms. Kerr could be seen wiping away tears, with her fiancée describing her as "humble" and saying she "wouldn't want anyone else" to be the mother of her children.

At the time of the incident, the Australian Matildas captain and Chelsea soccer club forward was living in London. The incident occurred at Twickenham Police Station in January 2023. The 34-minute police body-worn camera video was taken by Police Constable Shaun Scott inside Twickenham Police Station in London on January 30, 2023. Constable Scott turned on his camera at 2:42 a.m., approximately 20 minutes after Kerr and Mewis arrived at Twickenham Police Station.

Kerr and Mewis told the court this week that they were drunk at the time, while police said they were extremely distressed after a taxi ride during which they claimed to have been "hijacked." Much of the conversation before the core comment in the trial involved officers urging the pair to pay for the damage to the taxi window, which they refused to do. The video was played unedited to the jury on Monday and released to the media by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) on Thursday. The clip provided to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and embedded in this article is not exactly the same as the one played in court.

In court, the jury saw and heard interactions between Kerr, Mewis, and Police Constables Lovell, Scott, and Lynn at the police station front desk. The audio was also played unedited. In the video provided by the CPS, coarse language has been muted and everyone except Kerr has been blurred. The ABC asked the CPS why this was the case. "She is [Ms. Kerr] is the person on trial, so she is the only one who has not been blurred. This is our usual practice, and we will not be releasing another version of this video," a CPS spokesperson said in an email. Both the defense and prosecution have relied on the content of the video to form their arguments this week, and the video has become key evidence.

Prosecutor William Emlyn Jones KC cross-examined Ms. Kerr for nearly five hours this week. On Thursday morning, Mr. Emlyn Jones focused on what Ms. Kerr said after calling Police Constable Lovell "stupid and white." "Then you said he [Police Constable Lovell] was 'fucking stupid and white'," Mr. Emlyn Jones asked Ms. Kerr. "Yes," Ms. Kerr replied. "What did his race have to do with anything?," he asked. "As I explained to you before, I felt like he was abusing his power and privilege to oppress me because he thought I was someone that I wasn't," she said. He said yesterday that Ms. Kerr told the court that Police Constable Lovell could not understand what it was like for two women to be in the back of a taxi with a stranger and be scared. "It was an issue based on his view as a man... not putting himself in the position of a woman," she said. "Yes," Ms. Kerr replied. "[It] has nothing to do with race, does it." "Not entirely," she admitted. "Ms. Kerr, what you said to him was, you are stupid because you are white," he responded. "No," she replied. The prosecutor said she chose to "display... hostility towards his white identity."

Kerr replied, "That's not what I meant." "But you did do that, didn't you." "Yes," she admitted. She told the court this week that she never intended to hurt Police Constable Lovell with her words, saying she "articulated it badly," which the prosecution disputed. "When you insulted him, you wanted to hurt him, didn't you?," Mr. Emlyn Jones asked. "I don't think at that moment I wanted to hurt him, no," she said. The "stupid and white" comment was made at the end of an interaction with three police officers, including Police Constable Lovell. Ms. Kerr claimed to Police Constable Lovell that they had contacted the police from the taxi but were hung up on, but the officer dismissed this, saying, "They wouldn't do that." A phone call played in court this week confirmed that Ms. Kerr's call was terminated by the operator. Much of the preceding conversation involved officers urging the pair to pay for the damage to the taxi window, which they initially refused to do, while claiming they had done nothing wrong. "When you made the comment 'you are stupid and white,' what were you trying to express?," Ms. Kerr's lawyer, Grace Forbes, asked her client. "That they would never experience what we had just experienced, and the fear for our lives, because of their power and privilege," she replied.

Ms. Kerr stated in evidence and cross-examination that she felt the police officers had power and privilege in the situation. But the prosecution spent a significant amount of time on Thursday reviewing a series of events that they said showed Ms. Kerr had power. In the video, she can be heard mentioning calling a lawyer and having Chelsea Football Club support her. At the beginning of the 30-minute clip filmed by Constable Scott, Ms. Kerr can be seen pointing her phone at Police Constable Lovell, but no audio was recorded. The prosecution argued that she was showing off a bank account, which Police Constable Lovell said made him feel "belittled." But Ms. Kerr told the court on Thursday that this was not the case and that she was actually showing him her call log to the police. She told the court that mentioning having a legal team to call on was a "bluff" aimed at trying to protect herself in a situation she felt was scary.

In her testimony, Ms. Mewis began to cry as she recalled the taxi ride on the night of January 30, 2023, saying she was "worried for my life" after the driver became "manic." "We were just locked in the taxi, and we had no control of where we were going, and we weren't being told anything," Ms. Mewis told the court. She denied refusing to pay the taxi fare or the cleaning fee after Ms. Kerr became ill during the ride. She confirmed that she smashed the taxi window, saying she did so because "I had to do something dramatic to save us, that's how I felt at the time." But under cross-examination, she could not remember which taxi window she kicked. She also could not say who damaged the partition between the taxi passenger area and the driver. "Is this an example of your intoxication affecting your memory of what actually happened," Mr. Emlyn Jones asked. "No," she replied. She told the court that she had seen Ms. Kerr treated differently because of her skin color "multiple times" and became emotional when describing her fiancée. "Sam is so lovely, she's so humble... she would help anyone," she said. "That's one of the reasons why I love her so much... she inspires me every day... I wouldn't want anyone else to be the mother of my children." "She treats everyone the same, she's not arrogant at all, and makes everyone feel welcome."

Criminal damage charges against the couple were dropped after Ms. Kerr transferred £900 ($1,796) to the driver. Ms. Mewis told the court that the funds were transferred because they wanted to end the dispute and that she was concerned the matter would affect her selection for the U.S. soccer team at the 2023 World Cup. At the time of the incident, she was a professional soccer player living in the United States and playing for a team in New York. Ms. Mewis' cross-examination is expected to continue tomorrow when the trial resumes. She is pregnant with the couple's first child and is expected to give birth in May.

In the body-worn camera video, both Ms. Kerr and Ms. Mewis repeatedly tried to tell police that they had been "hijacked" by the taxi driver. The couple both told the court this week that they felt police were "dismissive" of their story and instead believed the taxi driver, who said they refused to pay the fare. At one point in the video, Ms. Kerr accused the three police officers of being racist, saying, "This is a racist fucking thing." She previously told the court that she felt she was treated differently by police because of her skin color. "Do you accept that there is no basis for that?," the prosecutor asked. "That's my opinion," she replied. "Do you objectively accept that there is no evidence that anyone was motivated by racism?," he continued. "That's not my opinion." Ms. Kerr was reminded that she did not remember who the taxi driver was, and the court was told that the taxi driver was South Asian and had a heavy accent. "If the taxi driver was Asian, and they believed him, clearly, any assessment they made of the situation was not based on race, do you agree?," Mr. Emlyn Jones asked. "Yes," Ms. Kerr replied. "What if when the police formed their view about what had really happened here, what if they just got it right?," he asked. "They didn't," she said. A verdict is not expected this week.