A jury has been sent out to consider their verdict in the trial of Sam Kerr in London.
The star player of the Australia women’s soccer team appeared in court at Kingston Crown Court on the sixth day of the trial. Her defense counsel presented arguments in favor of her acquittal.
That was followed by the summing up by Judge Peter Lodder KC.
The defense highlighted that the jury did not need to focus on the details of the taxi ride. However, they emphasized the significance of the events that occurred during the ride, including their impact on the player, the response of the police, and the ensuing consequences.
According to Forbes, the defense counsel, discrediting Miss Kerr should not have been the focus. Instead, he criticized the questionable conduct of the police. He pointed out that the police failed to consider the possibility that the driver had indeed behaved inappropriately, as both women had described.
The prosecution, she said, has not challenged Kerr and Mewis saying they feared for their lives, yet “the police took no meaningful steps to investigate the taxi”.
Forbes admitted Kerr, 31, “did not cover herself in glory in the way she expressed herself that night,” but added, “if you are drunk you can still be the victim of crime”.
Kerr, she said, “was trying to express something, however poorly, about power, privilege and how that might colour perception” adding that the police held all the power in the dispute, the power to persuade them to pay $1800 to the taxi driver in compensation (which they did), the power to charge, arrest and investigate.
Forbes, referencing racism the Chelsea striker said she has suffered, said Kerr “felt she was unfairly perceived by the police as a troublemaker, it echoed experiences she had had in the past, things she had witnessed from a young age directed at her father.
“Was she right? Maybe? Miss Mewis had a sense she was being treated differently. It is very odd Miss Kerr was arrested for criminal damage when Miss Mewis told them she did it.”
Finally Forbes cast doubt on the degree of PC Lovell’s distress, highlighting he had not put it in his original statement, only adding it 11 months later after the Crown Prosecution Service said there was insufficient evidence to charge Kerr, and in the witness box he had to be asked five times before replying he was anything more than “belittled and upset”.
“How can you be sure of the impact when PC Lovell isn’t,” she said to the jury.
Intimating the cop only pursued the case due to Kerr’s fame she said his response was “more about who she is than what she said”.
