Chelsea striker felt ignored by male police ‘after fearing for her life in taxi’

Chelsea striker Samantha Kerr felt ignored by Met Police officers after telling them a taxi driver had left her fearing for her life, a court heard.

The Australian international is on trial charged with causing racially aggravated harassment to Pc Stephen Lovell during an incident in south-west London in the early hours of January 30 2023.

That night, Pc Lovell first saw Kerr as she crawled through a smashed taxi window outside Twickenham Police Station, Kingston Crown Court heard on Tuesday.

The taxi driver had driven Kerr and her partner, West Ham midfielder Kristie Mewis, to the station and complained that they had refused to pay clean-up costs after one of them was sick, and that one had smashed the vehicle’s rear window, jurors were told.

The women told officers that he had been “acting in a crazy way” by driving very fast, repeatedly stopping and speeding up again, locking them in the car, and refusing to let them go for about 15 minutes.

A “heated” discussion about the incident ensued at the station, during which Kerr allegedly became “abusive and insulting” towards Pc Lovell, calling him “stupid and white”.

Kerr accepts making the comments, but denies that they amount to the charge.

In a police interview the following day, Kerr, of previous good character, told the officer in charge that “I shouldn’t have been so front-footed” but “in that moment I was feeling very, very threatened because of one: How I was being treated, and two: For my life in that car”.

She did not have a lawyer, and told the officer: “I was in a taxi and I did vomit outside the window, and in that moment onwards the taxi driver became very aggressive and (was) driving very dangerous, and had us both very, very scared.

“I actually… pressed the emergency thing on my phone and spoke to someone and he (the driver) would not return us, drop us off – we wanted to pay whatever it was. He said (to police) we weren’t going to pay but that is not true at all.

“He would not drive us to our location and he was just driving us around and around very, very dangerously.

“He literally was so dangerous and so scary and he had us both very, very afraid.”

The taxi driver called emergency services twice.

A record of the first call was not found, but he was with officers by the end of the second, which lasted several minutes from 2.18am, the court heard.

Kerr used her Apple device’s “emergency call function” at 2.21am.

The calls were marked as linked by the control room.

That night, the footballer told officers she had contacted emergency services about the driver, but Pc Lovell said there was no record of that, the court heard earlier on Tuesday.

Police did not request copies of the emergency service calls at that time, and the taxi driver was never arrested or interviewed.

His last involvement with officers was to facilitate the women paying him for damage to his car.

Speed cameras that may have captured his vehicle were not checked, no ANPR records were searched, nor was cell site data for his devices.

Police asked if he had any recording device in his vehicle, he told them that he did not, and the officers did not check the cab for such a device.

During her police interview, Kerr said she could not recall which officer was Pc Lovell, but said: “We spoke to three officers and honestly I didn’t feel very helped.

“We were both very scared, very upset and we didn’t feel like we, I guess, were believed, on arrival, and were kind of being – not forced – but told just behave, just behave, just behave.”

The footballer said she did not recall speaking about Pc Lovell being white.

A recording of her saying “you guys are f****** stupid and white” and “I’m f****** over this shit” was played.

Kerr then acknowledged that she had spoken about Pc Lovell’s race.

It was “very confronting” to only speak to three male officers despite just being with “a very dangerous man”, she said, adding that she “definitely” would have preferred to speak with a woman in that situation.

Kerr apologised for making the officers “stay there so long and deal with two very angry girls”, and said “of course I understand that he was doing his job and he didn’t really know where we had come from”.

She added: “I just want to add how I didn’t feel we were being heard, I’ve never been in a situation like that where the taxi driver has locked the door and (driven) two females around – that’s why I felt so angry and so upset.”

The trial continues.