The prosecutor then asked Kerr: “What did his race have to do with anything?”
She replied: “I believed it was him using his power and privilege over me because he was accusing me of being something I’m not … I was trying to express that due to the power and privilege they had they would never have to understand what we had just gone through and the fear we were having for our lives.”
Sam Kerr’s fiancee Kristie Mewis arrives at court to give evidence. Credit: AP
Kerr accepts making the comments but has pleaded not guilty to one count of racially aggravated harassment. Her lawyer has argued she was making a comment about power and privilege.
The court previously heard on Wednesday that Kerr had told police “this is a racial f–king thing”.
When asked about these comments, Kerr said: “I believed were treating me differently because of what they perceived to be the colour of my skin – particularly PC Lovell’s behaviour.”
“The way he was accusing me of lying, and later arresting me for criminal damage even though Kristie said it was just her [who smashed the taxi’s window]. At the time, I thought they were trying to put it on me.”
The court was played footage of Kerr waving her phone in the face of Lovell while in the police interview room, but denied under oath the police officer’s testimony that she was boasting about how much money she had as a professional footballer during the quarrel over paying the taxi driver for damage to his vehicle.
In footage shown in court, Sam Kerr is seen displaying her phone to the police.
She added on Thursday: “[It was] the way he was responding to me, cutting me off, names he was calling me, being dismissive.”
Her fiancee, former United States international Kristie Mewis, told the jury that Kerr star was “speaking her truth” when she called a police officer “stupid and white” in the drunken late-night incident.
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Mewis, who is expecting a baby with Kerr in May, accused police of “gaslighting” after the “very scary” incident in which the pair claim they were taken hostage after the taxi driver locked the doors and refused to stop the vehicle.
The West Ham midfielder broke down in tears as she recalled: “It was like nothing I’ve experienced.” Kerr was also seen wiping away tears as she watched on from the dock.
Asked about her partner’s allegedly “abusive and insulting” behaviour towards Lovell that night, Mewis said: “I think that in her moment she was speaking her truth in how she was feeling.
“Subconsciously she felt that she was being treated differently. I’ve seen Sam be treated differently,” she told the court.
When asked by judge Paul Lodder to clarify what she meant by “her truth”, Mewis said: “I think that she has been treated differently and spoken to differently for her whole life and I think that she was feeling the same thing that she has felt before and the things that I have seen.”
Mewis said she felt “out of control” during the taxi ride when the pair were on their way home from a night out and “immediately felt fear for my life”.
“I didn’t know if it was a kidnapping or if we were going to crash… All of the horrible things you think about in your head; I didn’t know if that was going to happen.”
During cross-examination, prosecutors asked Mewis if she knew the taxi driver had claimed he was taking the pair to Twickenham Police Station after phoning emergency services about them.
She responded “no” and added: “I don’t know why you would drive that recklessly if you were taking us to a police station … why was he driving crazy? I don’t understand that part.”
Asked by Kerr’s barrister, Grace Forbes, to describe her partner, an emotional Mewis replied: “Sam is so loving, she’s so humble, she would help anybody… that’s one of the things I love about her so much. She’s so inspiring, she inspires me every day. I wouldn’t want anyone else to be the mother of my child.”
The trial continues.
