Chelsea forward Sam Kerr allegedly called police officer 'stupid and white' jury hears

LONDON (AP) — Chelsea forward Sam Kerr allegedly called a police officer “stupid and white” a jury heard on Monday.

Kerr, one of the best women’s soccer players in the world, is on trial charged with causing racially aggravated harassment to Metropolitan Police officer Stephen Lovell in south-west London in the early hours of Jan. 30, 2023.

The Australian captain, who is also her country’s all-time leading scorer, is alleged to have become “abusive and insulting” towards Lovell.

Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones KC told a Kingston Crown Court jury that Kerr and her partner, West Ham midfielder Kristie Mewis, had been out drinking when they were driven to Twickenham Police Station by a taxi driver. The driver complained the passengers refused to pay clean-up costs after one of them was sick and one of them smashed the vehicle’s rear window.

Footage from Lovell’s body camera was played to jurors, and Kerr tells Lovell and police officer Samuel Limb that she and Mewis were “very scared” and “trying to escape” the cab when they damaged the vehicle.

Kerr and Mewis appeared intoxicated and distressed, with Mewis visibly crying.

The 31-year-old Kerr can also be heard telling the two police officers, “This taxi driver held me and her hostage for about 15 minutes. I was like, ‘Please, let us out and I will pay whatever you want.'

“We were begging to get out of there. We were trying to escape - we were trapped. You have to understand the emergency that both of us felt. What do you expect us to do as women in that situation?”

In the footage, both soccer players also accuse the officers of believing the taxi driver’s version of events over their own.

Lovell told the jury that Kerr’s comment that he was “stupid and white” made him feel “upset.”

He is to be cross-examined by Kerr’s lawyer Grace Forbes when the trial resumes on Tuesday.

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Chelsea and Australia striker Sam Kerr arrives at Kingston Crown Court where she is charged with alleged racially aggravated harassment of a police officer, in London, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. (Jordan Pettitt/PA via AP)

Australian football star, Chelsea striker Samantha Kerr, left, arrives a court as she was charged with causing a police officer harassment, alarm or distress during an incident in Twickenham, in London, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Australian football star, Chelsea striker Samantha Kerr arrives a court as she was charged with causing a police officer harassment, alarm or distress during an incident in Twickenham, in London, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Chelsea and Australia striker Sam Kerr arrives at Kingston Crown Court where she is charged with alleged racially aggravated harassment of a police officer, in London, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. (Jordan Pettitt/PA via AP)

Australian football star, Chelsea striker Samantha Kerr arrives a court as she was charged with causing a police officer harassment, alarm or distress during an incident in Twickenham, in London, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

JDEIDEH, Lebanon (AP) — It was not how the Rev. Maroun Ghafari had envisioned this Holy Week — for years, he had held Easter sermons in his predominantly Christian village of Alma al-Shaab in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel.

This year, he is preaching from a Beirut suburb, beside a cardboard cutout depicting his church in Alma al-Shaab, now caught in the crossfire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters.

Since hostilities erupted last month between Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group — in the shadow of the wider, U.S.-Israeli war on Iran — over 1,400 people have been killed in Lebanon, and more than 1 million have been forced to flee their homes.

Among those displaced from the war-torn south are thousands of Christians. They now find themselves far from their ancestral churches in Lebanon, where Christians have maintained a strong presence through centuries of Byzantine, Arab and Ottoman conquest and plenty of modern-day crises.

Christians are estimated to make up around a third of Lebanon's population of roughly 5.5 million people. With 12 Christian sects, the country is home to the largest proportion of Christians of any nation in the Arab world.

Christian villagers who stayed behind in southern Lebanon, ignoring Israel’s blanket evacuation warnings for the area, have increasingly hardened into enclaves surrounded by fierce clashes.

And though villagers in Alma al-Shaab had been uprooted before, in the 2024 Israel-Hezbollah war, this time around, they were adamant they wouldn't leave, even as airstrikes came closer and closer.

The villagers huddled in their church for protection as Israeli warplanes pounded large swaths of southern and eastern Lebanon while Israeli troops stepped up a ground invasion and Hezbollah kept firing rockets at Israel.

In his annual Easter homily, Patriarch Beshara al-Rai of Lebanon’s Maronite Church blamed both Hezbollah and Israel for the suffering wrought by the war.

“The country is going through a critical situation due to Iranian interference through Hezbollah and Israeli aggression,” he said. “Our hearts bleed for the victims of the conflict imposed on Lebanon.”

Ghafari’s brother, 70-year-old Sami Ghafari, was among the villagers who sought refuge at the church in Alma al-Shaab.

But he dashed out briefly on March 8 to tend to his garden, and was killed by an Israeli drone strike. His killing prompted the remaining villagers — including his brother — to pack up their belongings.

The U.N. peacekeepers in the area — a force known as UNIFIL that has monitored the region for nearly five decades — evacuated them to the northern suburbs of Beirut.

“We wanted to stay, but it was always possible that one of us could be targeted or killed at any moment,” the Rev. Maroun Ghafari told The Associated Press from St. Anthony Church in the northern Beirut suburb of Jdeideh, where the displaced from Alma al-Shaab came to worship on Saturday.

“Everyone is tired, and we see that war brings nothing but destruction, death and displacement.”

For many Lebanese Christians, it's a tradition on Holy Saturday — the day between Good Friday, which commemorates the crucifixion and death of Jesus, and Easter Sunday, which marks his resurrection according to the Gospels — to visit the graves of their loved ones.

This year, displaced Christians could only reflect from afar.

Nabila Farah, dressed in black for the Saturday service at St. Anthony Church, was among the last to leave Alma al-Shaab. She still feels heartbroken, a month later.

“You miss the smell of home, the lovely traditions and customs, the sounds of the bells of three churches ringing,” she said, reminiscing about her village. “As much as we experience the Easter atmosphere here, it will never be as it is over there.”

Those who remain face other challenges.

Marius Khairallah, a priest in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, where much of the Christian community has hunkered down, says that he and his congregants are staying put "not out of stubbornness, but out of a sense of mission, to remain alongside their fellow faithful, as witnesses.”

“A significant number of parishioners have been displaced or are absent,” he said. "Yet churches still open their doors. Prayers are still raised — even with fewer voices."

Worries are mounting among Christians in the area as the Lebanese army — which seeks to stay neutral in the Israel-Hezbollah war — pulls out from parts of southern Lebanon, leaving them exposed to Israeli forces pushing deeper into the territory.

St. Antony's main priest, the Rev. Dori Fayyad, used his Good Friday sermon to take solemn note of the war’s widening toll on the southern Lebanese Christians, as the faithful recited prayers in Arabic and Syriac, a dialect of the Aramaic language spoken by Jesus.

“Today, you understand what the cross means, not as an idea, not as a concept, but because you are going through it,” he told the fully packed pews, the crowd so thick that dozens had to stand or crouch on the back stairs.

Some wiped away tears as Fayyad named one by one the southern churches, illustrated in the cardboard cutouts next to the pulpit.

“These churches in these villages are not only places of worship,” he said. “They are silent witnesses to suffering and to faith.”

Associated Press video journalist Ali Sharafeddine in Jdeideh, Lebanon, contributed to this report.

A girl kisses a cross held by a priest during Good Friday Mass at St. Anthony Church, which was devoted to expressing solidarity with Christian villagers in southern Lebanon displaced by the war in Jdeideh, a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Parishioners walk in a procession after a Good Friday Mass at St. Anthony Church, which was devoted to expressing solidarity with Christian villagers in southern Lebanon displaced by the war in Jdeideh, a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Worshipers pray during Good Friday Mass at St. Anthony Church, which was devoted to expressing solidarity with Christian villagers in southern Lebanon displaced by the war in Jdeideh, a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Worshipers pray during Good Friday Mass at St. Anthony Church, which was devoted to expressing solidarity with Christian villagers in southern Lebanon displaced by the war in Jdeideh, a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Worshipers pray during Good Friday Mass at St. Anthony Church, which was devoted to expressing solidarity with Christian villagers in southern Lebanon displaced by the war in Jdeideh, a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, April 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)