Key Points
- Football star Sam Kerr admitted in a recording that she regretted not walking away from a confrontation with police.
- She is on trial, charged with racially aggravated harassment with intent to cause alarm or distress.
- Kerr called a London officer "f--king stupid and white" following a dispute with a taxi driver.
A jury has heard Sam Kerr admit she was drunk, angry, scared, and should have "just walked away" to avoid a row with London police officers that ended with her arrest.
"I wish I had just gone home. Wish I had walked away and dealt with it in the morning," Kerr said in an audio recording of an interview conducted on the night of 30 January 2023, in the hours after her arrest.
Australia's women's football captain was in Kingston Crown Court in London with her parents, Roger and Roxanne, and brother Levi on the second day of her trial on charges of racially aggravated harassment with intent to cause alarm or distress.
The offence carries a maximum sentence of 26 weeks in jail.
Earlier, the jury of eight women and four men heard police constable Stephen Lovell reject a claim by Kerr's counsel, Grace Forbes, that he said Kerr's description of him as "f--king stupid and white" distressed him "purely to get a criminal charge over the line".
In his original statement, Lovell made no mention of her abuse having an impact on him.
In his second statement, made 11 months later, after he requested a review of the Crown Prosecution Service's decision not to take the case to trial, Lovell said Kerr's comments left him "shocked, upset" and he "immediately felt humiliated".
Kerr, 31, was arrested after a night out with her partner Kristie Mewis, celebrating a hat trick Kerr had scored for Chelsea, which went sour.
A taxi driver called police after Kerr vomited in the cab and Mewis broke a passenger window in the belief the pair were being held hostage, the court has heard.
Police arrived on the scene to see Kerr climbing out of the window, her hands cut and bloodied.
The pair, described as "inebriated, emotional and in distress," were then interviewed in the police station, during which Kerr and her partner accused the police of taking the taxi driver's word against theirs.
Ultimately, given the choice of paying for the fare and damages or being arrested for criminal damage and taking the matter to court, Kerr opted for the latter.
In the build-up, she had twice called Lovell "f--king stupid and white" and was placed under arrest for the racially aggravated public order offence.
The criminal damage element was dropped soon after, with the £900 ($1,800) being paid.
In the police interview, which Kerr attended voluntarily and without a lawyer, she said: "I was obviously intoxicated. I shouldn't have been so front-footed, but I did not feel protected in that moment. I felt very threatened."
She said she was "not at all intending to make [Lovell] feel harassed, alarmed, threatened", adding: "The whole situation was stressful for everyone, my partner is crying, I have been crying, we all felt distressed."
"I wish I had just gone home. I felt very angry with how [Mewis] was being treated too. I wish I had walked away and dealt with it in the morning."
Asked what she would say to Lovell, Kerr responded: "Just 'sorry'. I understand he is doing his job. I apologise for a situation where they had to stay there so long and deal with two very angry girls in a situation probably not to be resolved in that moment, so I apologise for the whole event."
The trial continues.
