A police officer told a London court on Tuesday that he was determined to pursue the prosecution of Chelsea and Australia football star Sam Kerr after she called him \u201cstupid and white\u201d.<\/p>\n
Kerr, 31, is charged with causing racially aggravated harassment to police constable Stephen Lovell during an incident in southwest London in the early hours of January 30, 2023.<\/p>\n
It is alleged that Kerr and her partner, West Ham midfielder Kristie Mewis, had been out drinking when they were driven to a police station by a taxi driver.<\/p>\n
He complained that they had refused to pay clean-up costs after one of them had vomited, and that one of them had smashed the vehicle\u2019s rear window.<\/p>\n
The women told officers the driver had been \u201cacting in a crazy way\u201d by driving fast, repeatedly stopping and speeding up again, locking them in the car, and refusing to let them go for about 15 minutes, Kingston Crown Court heard.<\/p>\n
Footage from Lovell\u2019s body-worn camera was previously played to jurors, in which Kerr told Lovell and another police officer that she and Mewis were \u201cvery scared\u201d and \u201ctrying to escape\u201d the cab when they damaged the vehicle.<\/p>\n
At the police station Kerr, who is of mixed race, is alleged to have become \u201cabusive and insulting\u201d towards Lovell, using an expletive and calling him \u201cstupid and white\u201d.<\/p>\n
Kerr accepts making the comments but denies that they amount to the charge.<\/p>\n
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) originally decided not to charge Kerr, the court heard.<\/p>\n
It was put to Lovell that he only provided a statement alleging that Kerr\u2019s comments had caused alarm or harassment after that decision.<\/p>\n
In his first statement to the CPS, the officer made no mention of the \u201cstupid and white\u201d comment having an impact on him, the jury was told.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors authorised the police to charge Kerr after Lovell submitted a second statement in December 2023.<\/p>\n
He read a section of that statement to the court that said the comments made him \u201cshocked, upset, and (left) me feeling humiliated\u201d.<\/p>\n
Grace Forbes, defending Kerr, asked Lovell whether he had been \u201cdetermined to pursue\u201d Kerr.<\/p>\n
Lovell said \u201cyes\u201d and Forbes asked \u201cthrough the criminal courts\u201d? The officer said \u201cyes\u201d again.<\/p>\n
She noted that prosecutors had originally found no evidence of harassment or alarm caused by Kerr\u2019s comments, and suggested Lovell\u2019s second statement described their effect \u201cpurely to get a criminal charge over the line\u201d.<\/p>\n
During re-examination by prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones, Lovell told the jury that Kerr\u2019s words had made him feel \u201cbelittled and upset\u201d.<\/p>\n
Kerr made her debut for current Women\u2019s Super League champions Chelsea in 2020. She is currently out of action with a knee injury.<\/p>\n
The post Police officer \u2018determined\u2019 to pursue prosecution of Chelsea star Kerr<\/a> first appeared on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A police officer told a London court on Tuesday that he was determined to pursue the prosecution of Chelsea and Australia football star Sam Kerr after she called him \u201cstupid and white\u201d. Kerr, 31, is charged with causing racially aggravated harassment to police constable Stephen Lovell during an incident in southwest London in the early […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109571\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}