Footballer tells court incident was a ‘racial thing’
EPAChelsea footballer Samantha Kerr told the court she believes Twickenham Police Department officials treated her differently based on “the color of my skin they think is.”
Australia International denied that it caused serious racial harassment by PC Stephen Lovell in a incident in southwest London, calling him “stupid and white”.
The alleged incident happened after Ms. Kerr was taken to the station by a taxi driver because she paid when she left the house on the evening of January 30, 2023.
A video to Crown Court in Kingston shows Ms. Kerr swore to the officer and said it was “a racial matter.”
When the incident happened, Ms. Kerr was with her partner West Ham midfielder Kristie Mewis.
The court heard that Ms. Kerr was sick and refused to pay the cleaning fee, and after Ms. Mavis smashed the rear window, the driver took the couple to the Twickenham Police Department.
The defense asked Ms. Kerr how she felt at the station’s three policemen, including PC Lovell.
She told the court that at first she was scared again because “they tried to tell us that we were the people who had been criminals here”.
She added that the actions of the two officers were “confrontation”.
When asked what she meant, she said, “Don’t believe us – telling us that things didn’t happen I knew what happened, making me feel like a liar, the second guessing myself.”
“White Privileges”
The defense asked what it was like to watch the video, and Ms. Kerr said: “It’s hard to look at herself.”
Ms Kerr told the court she filmed a video of what was going on because she felt she needed to prove she was not well treated.
The court heard in the video that PC Lovell said, “Do you think the driver of the taxi to rape and kill you take you to the police station?”
Ms. Kerr said in the video that he was a “white privilege.”
When she was asked in court about saying so at the time, she said PC Lovell “knows nothing about the powers and privileges he had in that moment or in his life because he commented on what the driver did to me never thought What happens as a woman.”
“Fear”
Ms Kerr also told the court that she and her partner were worried about her life when they were “trapped” behind a taxi.
Ms Kerr told the jury that she began to feel sick before the driver shut down and started driving “dangerously.”
When asked, she said Ms. Mavis kicked the back window several times with her boots before she collapsed, and she was relieved that “there is a way out.”
Football player also told the court Murdering Sarah Everard Her mind was “highly prominent” because she said the taxi driver had locked the door and did not respond when she and her partner “pleaded” him to let them go.
Julia QuenzlerMs Kerr also told the court that she had experienced “being treated differently” due to the color of the skin.
She said she was known as “white Anglo-Indian” along with her Australian mother and father from India.
When the defense was interrogated, she said she had experienced racism for the first time when she was nine or ten years old.
She told the court that in some cases she believes are treated differently, such as on social media. She added that in a shopping mall, “if I don’t wear clothes, I’m often followed by security personnel.”
Ms Kerr told the court she moved to the UK from Australia in December 2019 after signing with Chelsea.
