Tory MP Bob Stewart is found guilty of racially abusing activist after telling him to ‘go back to Bahrain’ and saying: ‘You’re taking money off my country, go away!’

• The MP was fined £600, with additional legal costs bringing the total to £1,435

A Tory MP was today found guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence after telling an activist to ‘go back to Bahrain’. 

Bob Stewart, 74, abused Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei outside the Foreign Office’s Lancaster House building on December 14 last year while the politician was attending an event to mark the National Day of Bahrain.

The MP for Beckenham in south-east London also told Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei ‘you’re taking money off my country, go away’ during the row, Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard. 

Mr Alwadaei told the court that he was there because he had been beaten and tortured in Bahrain during the Arab Spring and said if he did return, he would ‘undoubtedly be killed and tortured’.

He claimed Stewart had gone on trips to Bahrain funded by the Bahraini regime and said Stewart’s comments had made him feel ‘not safe’. He said he felt ‘dehumanised’ and ‘not welcomed in the UK.’

Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring has found Stewart guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence. 

After giving his verdict at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, he fined the MP £600, with additional legal costs bringing the total to £1,435. He said Stewart will not be jailed.

Conservative MP Bob Stewart arrives at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, central London

Activist Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei is pictured outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court 

Mr Goldspring, despite mentioning Stewart’s ‘immense positive character’, remarked: ‘I accept he is not racist per se, but that is not the case against him. Good men can do bad things.’

Stewart, asked for his thoughts on the allegations of racial hostility, had earlier said: ‘That’s absurd, it’s totally unfair, my life has been, I don’t want to say destroyed, but I am deeply hurt at having to appear in a court like this.’

The MP declared: ‘I am not a racist.’

He continued: ‘He was saying that I was corrupt and that I had taken money. My honour was at stake in front of a large number of ambassadors. It upset me and I thought it was extremely offensive.’

Westminster Magistrates’ Court was earlier shown footage of the incident in which Alwadaei asked Mr Stewart: ‘For how much did you sell yourself to the Bahraini regime?’

Stewart replied: ‘Get stuffed, Bahrain is a great place, end of.’

‘You were paid by them recently,’ Alwadaei added. 

‘Go away, I hate you, you make a lot of fuss, go back to Bahrain,’ replied Stewart.

Alwadaei asked Stewart again how much he sold himself to the Bahraini regime for, to which Stewart responded: ‘I didn’t. Now shut up you stupid man’. 

Paul Jarvis, prosecuting, said: ‘We say that the words used by Mr Stewart were abusive. We say in effect that what he was stating was that he is not of this country, and that he should go back to where he came from.

‘We say that it was racially aggravated in the context. We do not suggest that he was motivated by racial hostility, but his words demonstrated racial hostility.’

Stewart told the court he had ‘no idea’ who Mr Alwadaei was and said he used the word ‘hate’ because of what the protester was saying.

The MP went on: ”Go back to Bahrain’ meant ‘Why don’t you go back to Bahrain and make your point there?”

He told of being ‘goaded’ and ’embarrassed’ by Mr Alwadaei.

Asked if he accused Mr Alwadaei of taking money from the UK, the MP went on: ‘I made the assumption he too was living in this country and was benefiting from living in this country.

‘I certainly didn’t mean he was a freeloader.’

The MP used the phrase ‘my country’ because he ‘assumed’ Mr Alwadaei was from Bahrain but accepted the words ‘this country’ would ‘perhaps have been better’, the court heard.

Stewart, a former British Army officer who was stationed in Bahrain in 1969, said he is a ‘friend’ of the Middle Eastern country.

He went on: ‘I’ve spent my whole life in a way defending minorities and people of different colours.’

Bob Stewart MP speaking with Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei

Stewart gave a statement to the police in which he denied that the comments were racist.

‘He denies that the comments were racist,’ the prosecutor said. ‘He apologises if anyone was offended. He regretted what he said.’

Giving evidence at Westminster Magistrates Court, Mr Alwadaei said he came to the UK in 2004 and studied at the University of Brighton.

He went back to Bahrain in 2010 during the Arab Spring and returned to the UK in 2012 after he was abused by the police.

‘I was assaulted by the police. I have a scar on my forehead,’ he said. ‘I was kicked by the riot police as I was on the ground.’

Mr Alwadaei said he was tortured and prosecuted in a military court even though he was a civilian.

‘I was tortured at the hands of the police of Bahrain. I felt Bahrain was not a safe place for me to stay so I therefore left to seek asylum in the UK.’

He was asked about the incident involving Stewart.

‘My intention was to exercise my right to peaceful protest.

‘I have watched Mr Stewart speak in parliament in defence of the Bahraini regime.

‘I looked into his financial records and I saw that Mr Stewart is a beneficiary of trips to Bahrain, financed by the Bahraini government.

‘I believe he was in Bahrain a few weeks before the incident, I saw a video of him chanting God save the King of Bahrain.’

He was asked how Stewart’s remarks had made him feel.

‘I felt I was dehumanized, that I was someone who is not wanted in the UK.

‘I did not feel safe after that incident.’

Stewart denied racially aggravated harassment and threatening behaviour but Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring has found him guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence.

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