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Sam Kerr’s fight to clear her name has hit a serious hurdle after her court case on charges of racially aggravated harassment was delayed until February 2025.
The Matildas and Chelsea striker was set to appear at London’s Kingston Crown Court on Monday in a bid to have the criminal charges thrown out. However the presiding judge has cancelled her preliminary hearing, ruling it is “no longer needed”.
Kerr must now wait until February 3 to fight the charges, another devastating setback for the 30-year-old after she was ruled out of the second half of the English Women’s Super League season with a badly ruptured anterior cruciate ligament injury.
The injury has seen the Matildas talisman miss Australia’s AFC Women’s Olympic qualifiers series against Uzbekistan in February 2024 and will keep her sidelined for the upcoming friendlies against China on May 31 in Adelaide, and June 3 in Sydney.
With no timeframe for Kerr’s return to football, doubts are now growing she will contest the 2026 Asian Cup to which Australia was awarded hosting rights this week.
The night of January 30, 2023 has thrown significant shadow over a golden career in which the Perth-born star became the only female soccer player to have won the Golden Boot as Best Player in three different leagues on three different continents.
Kerr is facing charges of intentionally causing “racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress to a police officer” after a night out with teammates in London went awry.
At 3am on the night in question, just hours after Kerr scored a hat-trick of goals to propel Chelsea to a 3-2 FA Cup victory over Liverpool, the striker allegedly vomited in a taxi and became embroiled in a dispute about the fare. When police were called in, she allegedly called the attending male officer a “stupid white bastard”.
According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, the 30-year-old was detained in police custody and spent time in a holding cell while awaiting formal interview.
Kerr’s legal team is reported to have asked the Kingston Crown Court for CCTV footage from outside a Twickenham station or from inside the custody suite to be provided to them and also requested the audio recorded from the police interview.
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According to documents filed by Kerr’s legal team with Kingston Crown Court in early April, Kerr will assert she did not intend to racially abuse the officer on the night in question. Kerr reportedly isn’t denying that she referred to the policeman as “white” and will instead argue she said “stupid white cop”.
Her legal team is intending to argue an abuse of process by crown prosecutors after it took a year for her to be charged. The hearings have already been delayed since April when Crown Prosecution Service were unable to gather sufficient CCTV footage or written statements from police, to cross examine the football superstar.
“All issues between the parties have now been resolved,” a clerk at the London court said according to a report on news.com. “The next date we have for the case is the trial date of February 3 next year. The judge agreed for this to be the case administratively. Monday’s hearing is no longer needed.”
