U.S. international Kristie Mewis told a court on Thursday that her fiancee Sam Kerr was “speaking her truth in how she was feeling” when she called a police officer “stupid and white”.
Kerr, one of women’s football’s most decorated players, is charged with causing racially aggravated harassment to PC Stephen Lovell during the incident inside a police station in the early hours of January 30, 2023.
That followed a night out Kerr had been on with Mewis. At the end of the evening, they hailed a black cab on Oxford Street and headed to Kerr’s home in Richmond. The taxi driver ended up calling the police to complain they had smashed the rear window and so instead of dropping them home, drove them to Twickenham police station.
It was once inside the police station that Kerr allegedly became abusive and referenced PC Lovell’s race.
Kerr does not deny what she said but has pleaded not guilty to one count of racially aggravated harassment.
On day four of the trial, a visibly emotional Mewis, who dabbed her eyes with a tissue, said she “feared for her life” in the taxi.
“I felt out of control and like someone else had control over me and that was obviously very scary… I didn’t know if it was a kidnapping or if we were going to crash,” she said. “All of the horrible things you think about in your head, I didn’t know if that was going to happen.”
She said she remembered saying “please stop, please stop” multiple times but got no response from the driver.
West Ham United player Mewis, who is expecting a baby with Kerr, eventually broke a window in the taxi.
“I knew that I had to do something dramatic to save us, this was a very dangerous situation for the both of us,” she said. “I feared we were getting taken against our will, I didn’t know if it was kidnapping, I didn’t know if we were going to crash.”
She told how she initially felt relief when they arrived at the police station but that PC Lovell was “immediately dismissive” of them.
“We were two young women who had just been through something really terrifying and I don’t think they cared to listen,” she said.
Mewis added: “In my opinion, (the police) were trying to change the story and make it into something it wasn’t. It felt a little bit like gaslighting… the story (they) repeated back was different or they were manipulating it back onto us.”
Mewis then told how PC Lovell acted differently towards Kerr, saying he was “more snide” and “shorter” with her partner.
Asked for her reaction to Kerr saying the words “stupid and white”, Mewis replied: “I think that in that moment she was speaking her truth in how she was feeling, subconsciously she felt like she was being treated differently, and I’ve seen it a lot.”
Sam Kerr, who has been out injured for more than a year, arrives at court on Thursday (Leon Neal/Getty Images)
Grace Forbes, for the defence, responded: “What have you seen a lot?”
“I have seen Sam being treated (differently) multiple times,“ she replied.
Asked by Miss Forbes to describe her partner, an emotional Mewis replied: “Sam is so loving, she’s so humble, she would help anybody… that’s one of the things I love about her so much. She’s so inspiring, she inspires me every day. I wouldn’t want anyone else to be the mother of my child.”
Cross-examined by Bill Emlyn Jones KC, for the prosecution, Mewis admitted her partner’s behaviour “wasn’t great”.
However, when asked about Kerr making the “stupid and white” remark, Mewis replied: “At the time, I think it was her truth in how she was feeling.
“I think she has been treated differently and spoken to differently for her whole life and I think that she was feeling the same thing that she has felt before and things that I have seen.”
Earlier on Thursday, Kerr also faced questions from Emlyn Jones.
Referencing her remarks of “I’ve got all the f****** people in the world” and “I’ve got f****** Chelsea going on”, he asked her: “Do you know the expression ‘the big I am?’. Do you think that’s what you were doing?”
Kerr replied: “No.”
He asked: “Who is it with the power and privilege then, Miss Kerr?”
“In my opinion, the police,” she responded.
He told her she had no basis to accuse the police officers of being racist towards her, also pointing out how the taxi driver was Asian.
In response, Kerr said: “That’s how I perceived it.”
When asked about the remarks she made to PC Lovell and why she brought up his race, Kerr said she thought the officer was “using his privilege and power” over her.
To that, Emlyn Jones asked: “You were turning his whiteness into an insult, weren’t you?”
He added: “At the moment of expressing your hostility to him because of what you thought was his stupidity, you also chose to show hostility towards him because of his whiteness.”
Kerr replied: “That’s not what I meant.”
To that, Emlyn Jones said: “It’s what you did.”
Kerr responded: “It’s what I did, yes.”
On Wednesday, the court heard how Kerr felt she was being treated differently by officers because of her skin colour.
The court was told how Kerr identifies as white Anglo-Indian and that her father, Roger, is Anglo-Indian. Kerr said she was around nine or 10 years old when she first witnessed racism directed at members of her family.
Kerr’s parents, Roger and Roxanne, as well as her brother Levi, were present in court again on Thursday, as they have been every day of the trial. Two Chelsea fans, one in a club scarf, were also in the public gallery to show their support for Kerr.
The Australia captain has won multiple trophies since joining Chelsea in 2019, scoring 99 goals in 128 matches.
She is currently recovering from an anterior cruciate ligament injury she sustained at a training camp in Morocco in January last year.
The trial continues.
(Top photo: Andrew Matthews/PA Images via Getty Images)
