Chelsea striker Sam Kerr has been found not guilty of causing racially aggravated harassment, after calling a Metropolitan Police officer “stupid and white”.
A jury at Kingston Crown Court cleared her in relation to an incident in Twickenham, south-west London, on 30 January 2023.
Ms. Kerr said she was “antagonised” by officers after she was taken to the police station by a taxi driver following a dispute.
She did not deny using the words “stupid and white” but denied it amounted to a racial offence.
Recalled that the Australia captain was on trial, charged with causing racially aggravated harassment, which she denies, to police constable Stephen Lovell during an incident in southwest London in the early hours of January 30, 2023.
It is alleged that Kerr, 31, and her partner, West Ham midfielder Kristie Mewis, had been out drinking when they were driven to a police station by a taxi driver who complained that they had refused to pay clean-up costs after one of them vomited, and that one of them smashed the vehicle’s rear window.
At the police station, Kerr, who is mixed race, is alleged to have become “abusive and insulting” towards Lovell, calling him “stupid and white”.
In his closing speech on Friday, prosecutor Bill Emlyn-Jones asked the jury: “What if PC Lovell had been a black male and what if she had called him… stupid and black? Now of course that is not a fair question, because black and white is not a fair swap.
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“Calling a white man is not as loaded, so you can’t just turn it around, it is not as easy as that. In the heat of the moment this was an insult delivered in reference to race and that is what the law prohibits.
“The test for you is the same regardless of the ethnicity in question. She was insulting him and, at the time, she was hostile to him by reference to his race. So the fact you will be able to think of much worse examples of racial aggravation is irrelevant.
“Would we consider this a racially aggravated insult if she had said stupid and black? Of course you would, it wouldn’t even be contestable.”
During the trial, the court heard character references from Chelsea team-mates and former head coach Emma Hayes.
