Sam Kerr was found not guilty of racially aggravated harassment of a police officer.
So before you even go into the details of the legal proceedings that were commenced in a London court almost a year after she uttered the words “fucking stupid and white”, let’s remember the conclusion: she was found not guilty.
But according to various Australian columnists, commentators and social media users, Kerr’s status as a sporting legend is in tatters and she deserves to be disciplined in some way.
Just take a venture down the comments sections of social media posts on the outcome of the case. While, in some forums at least, there are plenty of comments supporting Kerr, it’s difficult to miss those jumping in to describe her as “unaustralian” (because Australians have never had a drink and made a mistake?) and an “embarrassment”. There’s no way a “male rugby league player wouldn’t get away with it”, some claim, forgetting what such players have gotten away with previously, even in just the last year.
The Australian describes the incident as “Sam Kerr’s own goal”. An ABC column describes the incident as a “turning point” for Australian sport, with a high-profile Australian sportswoman finally facing a scandal the size of what we’ve seen over and over again from sportsmen. One prominent commentator has described Football Australia “weak” for how it’s so far handled the saga, declaring it must not endorse her as Matildas captain.
You can almost smell the glee on these commentators. Finally, we get to discuss the drunken mistakes of a woman!
Meanwhile, in the UK, Kerr is receiving a more forgiving response.
Chelsea women’s team coach Sonica Bompastor has accepted the verdict, as well as the statement Kerr released. “She apologised for that and I think that is enough,” she said.
“Every man, every woman can make mistakes and that what you from and that’s how you move forward.”
What many of Kerr’s detractors are missing in the endless scrutiny of her behaviour on that one night, in January 2023, is the context shared during the six-day trial.
Indeed, hearing this evidence, it quickly became clear the jury was highly unlikely to find Kerr guilty of the harassment charge.
On that early 2023 early morning, Kerr and her now fiancé Kristie Mewis were in a London police station after being driven there against their will, by a London taxi driver. They had initially wanted an Uber. They had been out drinking and Kerr was sick in the cab and initially refused to pay the clean up fee. The driver locked his doors and started driving them towards a police station, despite protests from Kerr and Mewis who became increasingly terrified at being locked in a vehicle. They broke a window, telling court they did so because they felt they were being “kidnapped”, and were attempting to escape.
In the audio of Kerr speaking with the police officer, she urges him to put themselves in the shoes of a woman to try and understand it feels to be locked in a car by a male driver. He refuses to do so and at one point calls her “Missy moo”. Kerr says a number of things no one would want to have aired back to them — as does the police officer. Kerr eventually utters the words at the centre of the trial, with the constable left feeling ”upset”, “humiliated” and “shocked” and “belittled” – feelings that ultimately underpinned the entire case.
I’m sure Kerr’s not proud of the long exchange caught on camera in that police station.
But as human rights barrister and author Geoffrey Robertson wrote on the case this week, “questions must be asked about whether it should have taken place at all.”
He noted the incident arose in the context of being unable to cause any public danger or alarm “as two distressed young women argued with three male police officers in the safe confines of a police station.”
Robertson noted that the case would cost British taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pounds and that most London lawyers were surprised it was ever brought to trial. He also noted similar cases that involved a caution being issued or a short hearing in a magistrates court resulting in a fine or conditional discharge.
But such context goes missing in the desire to bring an Australian sportswoman down, one who is a woman of colour no less, is in a same-sex relationship, and is typically quiet in speaking up in the media, preferring to let her on-field actions do the talking.
Imagine, then, what must have felt to walk in the shoes of Kerr and Mewis going in and out of court. The couple are pregnant with their first child, and who had to disable the comments on the social media posts sharing their happy news late last year, due to the streams of homophobic abuse levelled against them. No one is going to court for those comments.