A PROMINENT Scottish Palestine campaigner has won an appeal against hate crime convictions after clashing with a Jewish pro-Israel activist.
Mick Napier had in December last year been found guilty of behaving in a threatening or abusive manner towards Samuel Stein – the chair of the Glasgow Friends of Israel group – and that had been aggravated by prejudice related to religion, or a social or cultural group with a perceived religious affiliation.
After the ruling, Stein said it was evidence of Napier’s “antisemitism”.
However, the pro-Palestine campaigner has now won an appeal and had the convictions altered.
While Napier was still found to be guilty of behaving in a threatening or abusive manner towards Stein, the Sheriff Appeal Court said that the previous ruling had “failed to state the type of prejudice by which the offences were said to have been aggravated”.
The appeal court said that there was not the “necessary inference, objectively assessed, that the appellant’s malice or ill will was based to any extent on the complainer’s faith, race, nationality or ethnic or national origins”.
The decision was in relation to the offences committed on February 15 and March 1 2025, for which Napier was fined a total of £500.
A separate offence, on June 7 2025 and for which Napier was fined £100, was unaffected by the appeal as it had never been ruled a hate crime.
The appeal court made “no change to any other aspect of the conviction recorded, or the sentence”, meaning the fines still stand.
A post shared by Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (@scottish_psc)
The Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) welcomed the ruling, saying Napier’s convictions “were rightly overturned on the basis that the sheriff did not evidence in sentencing that his actions were motivated by hate towards a protected group”.
“The continued malicious attempts to use hate crime legislation to smear those speaking out against a racist, genocidal apartheid state were shut down,” the SPSC added. “And for the fourth time, founding member of SPSC Mick was cleared of any hate crime.
“We must continue to fight back against the anti-Palestinian racism that drives these false allegations, charges and trials. Antisemitism is a crime. Antizionism is a duty.”
Stein’s Glasgow Friends of Israel frequently set up a stall on Glasgow’s Buchanan Street, while Napier’s SPSC demonstrate outside the Barclays on Argyle Street over the bank’s connections to the Israeli state.
Stein had previously told the Sheriff Court that Glasgow Friends of Israel “deliberately opened an account [at Barclays] in the face of the disgraceful behaviour that takes place there every week”.
The clashes between Stein and Napier which originally led to the hate crime convictions both happened outside the bank, while the third happened on Argyle Street “and elsewhere”.
The court documents stated that Stein was born in Scotland but has served in the Israeli army as an Israeli citizen, while Napier was described as "a retired university professor".
