Sam Kerrs offensive crime

[Codlingmoths]

after a few days of manic speculation, it turns out Sam Kerr has been charged with calling someone a “stupid white bastard.”
I’m white and I can’t get too worked up about this! Yes it was not ideal conduct, but a crime of racism?

Socially and morally I completely agree, the problem is that when you're drafting laws around hate crimes/ racism/ sexism whether criminal or employment , the wording is all encompassing.

So you can't have the law say "it is an offence to reference someone's race in an aggressive manner (unless they're white, then crack on)" so you end up with stupid shit like this.
So she has committed an offence if the reporting of her actions are accurate, same way an employer will have breached employment law if they discriminate against a man or a white person even though the laws weren't drafted with protecting them in mind

The copper should be fucking embarrassed to have pursued this.

I too hope the policeman is embarassed . And bloody hell I hope someone asks him if he’s put as much time into stamping out sexual assault and harassment of women by police as he has in filing this charge. Which I think will go nowhere. There is I think substantial precedent that racism is referring pejoratively to a minority status, not generically insulting someone.

But, and I realise that this is me being a law nerd rather and not trying to be a provocative "devil's advocate", you simply can't draft a law that satisfies that.

How do you define minority status, you then also are painting yourself in to a corner with regards to offences involving none white (who's the minority status between Indians and Caribbeans, you'll have to come up with a league table.)

Is why many people, in good faith although there are a lot of bad faith actors who argue the same point, argue against hate speech laws and crimes because they are by their nature subjective, vague and open to abuse.

Would any of the following be racist?
stupid white bitch
stupid black man
stupid brown bastard

What she said was racist though.

accused of using insulting, threatening or abusive words that caused alarm or distress to a police officer

Bless. Those poor delicate police officers. Thank heaven our overburdened court system is prioritising the major cases.

What's the crime?

Alleged. She’s alleged to have said that.

'intentionally causing racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress to the male PC under section 31(1)(b) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.'

Yes. All of them. With a bit of added sexism as well but then misogyny is not a hate crime so that's ok then.

@Mayorq I agree hate crime and racism crime laws are problematic. Good in principle but so often simply seem to be used as a weapon and not at all as intended, which means they don’t work.

I don't agree with racism in any form but to call someone a bastard is terrible.
I think the offense isn't that she noticed the colour of the Policeman but that she called the authoritive person, be they pink, yellow, black or white, a bastard.

To call someone by their noticable description is just being observant, not racist.

You tall bastard, You short haired bastard, You fat bummed bastard, You freckled, black toothed bastard, You goggle eyed bastard, You golden haired bastard, You pock faced bastard, You white bastard. None are racist, merely desctriptive.

Sam Kerr vomitted in a taxi. That is disgusting.
She refused to pay and coppers intervened so she should have been compliant and obeyed the law.
She called the Police a bastard. She was observant enough to notice what the Policeman looked like so Sam should have been able to do what he asked... She was abusive but not racially abusive.

discriptive, vomited .. please excuse spellingtypos.

Tbf the misogyny element falls foul of the same problem that if you made it a hate crime you'd also have to make "misandry" one, and I'd bet my bottom dollar that when they were being applied there'd be a lot more injustice towards women than men

She is Aussie. To call someone a bastard is … not that terrible at all. So if you feel like the Aussie media is forgiving her, that’s why.

It was very likely recorded and if so she is in deep shit contractually and criminally.

Being pissed is going to make it worse and there is not an accepted defence of "being Australian" ie Australian people swear so what's the issue?

The CPS would be mad to pursue this unless they had good evidence. No wonder her lawyers want to get it knocked out for a technicality; anything else means looking at the evidence.

I'm all for charging Sam Kerr for her behaviour after vomiting in a cab. I assume she was disputing that she should pay extra for cleaning the cab. However, when the Metropolitan Police have been repeatedly shown to be misogynistic and racist, it looks very bad from a PR perspective to charge her with a racially aggravated crime.

Yes, such as those very serious crimes including putting up some purple ribbons, stickering in support of women only spaces, or making social media comments opposing castrating children for example.
(All of which had heavy handed police action for those who don't know).
Priorities, priorities in this totalitarian age.

Exactly, having good evidence doesn’t seem to be the focus of the police.
I’m also interested in how many people have thrown up in a cab and disputed charges but are not being charged. The police also seem to use that spare time they create by not reviewing evidence or learning the law to go after women.

The issue is certainly complicated though by the policing of private individuals social media posts by football clubs and fans then being banned for comments deemed offensive. (And in some instances passing the ‘dossiers’ onto the police).
It seems odd that football clubs will demand a standard of behaviour from fans (and even seek to have them prosecuted)that their players don’t show.

I wish we had freedom of speech and the police could concentrate on proper crime.

Here in Australia it’s seen almost as a joke, as it’s such a mild insult compared to what police officers are used to here. I have seen funny memes.
Was it the police officer himself who pressed charges? Maybe he has strong personal beliefs about “reverse racism”?
Or do they normally lay charges on everyone who calls a police officer (or nurse and other public sector workers) a derogatory name now in the UK? If so, that would make sense but still, you’d expect something more like a warning or caution considering they have such big problems with serious crimes especially in London.

Id be astonished if she was convicted.

The behaviour was sub par but there’s case law which requires the threshold for the harassment, alarm or distress of police officers to be much higher than with the general public. Essentially the law requires that they have a thicker skin.

the racism element is also highly dubious

You can't be racist against a white person, anti-whiteness is not racism, because white people are the oppressor. White people created and controlled the hierarchy that enforces systemic racism, we cannot be victims of it.
It's like you can't have reverse sexism.

I'm all in favour of the crowd chanting "Stupid White Bastards" at any (male) police standing at Kingsmeadow