A lawyer has been accused of antisemitism and fined £2,000 after describing Auschwitz as “like Paisley but without the social problems”.
Neil McPherson was also ordered to pay compensation after his professional body ruled he called people from the Renfrewshire town “ugly and thick”.
The Law Society of Scotland’s professional conduct subcommittee saw screenshots of comments from a Facebook account of a Neil McPherson sent by the complainer Arnon Nachmani.
The hearing was told Nachmani became aware of the posts in November 2020, eight months after they were posted. McPherson, 64, claimed they were fake. The subcommittee found McPherson had “failed to maintain the standards of behaviour expected of a solicitor by making an insensitive, unprofessional and offensive comment regarding another Facebook member’s trip to Auschwitz, saying that Auschwitz is like Paisley but without the social problems”. It also found he failed to maintain professional standards with an “insensitive, unprofessional and offensive comment on Facebook when he described people from Paisley as ugly and thick”.
The subcommittee’s investigator found that the comments “were of an antisemitic nature and offensive”.
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He added: “The complainer has made it clear that, due to his Jewish background and also because he claimed to be born in Paisley, he was deeply offended. While the complainer had not provided evidence of his birthplace or background, the [investigator] accepted that a person of such background was likely to be offended.”
The subcommittee was satisfied the material was offensive and antisemitic and that if the account was fake it was “very sophisticated”, with no evidence McPherson tried to have it taken down.
It found it could not be proven beyond reasonable doubt that McPherson, of Newton Mearns, whose law firm is in Kilmarnock, made the posts but it was “satisfied that it was more likely than not”. The subcommittee found the behaviour “fell well below the standard of conduct to be expected of a competent and reputable solicitor” and made a finding of unsatisfactory professional conduct on February 20.
It ordered McPherson to pay £2,000 and £100 to Nachmani. McPherson was contacted for comment.
In 2002 McPherson was jailed for four months and banned from the road for life after a fourth drink-driving conviction. In December he was cleared of threatening and abusive behaviour after Kilmarnock sheriff court heard he called an official, whose husband had died of Covid, a “f***ing fat cow” when she asked him to wear a mask.