THE deputy chair of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) was racially attacked in a Scottish shopping centre - and she has claimed it was directly linked to the crisis in the Middle East.

Kay Hampton, who is also the Scottish commissioner of the CRE, was verbally assaulted in The Avenue shopping centre in Newton Mearns, East Renfrewshire, last Friday. She believes she was mistaken for a Muslim, and the attack was directly linked with the conflict in Lebanon.

Hampton told the Sunday Herald she was shopping with her daughter when she heard a man call them "pigs". After she challenged him, the man became loud and aggressive, and followed her into a greengrocer's. When onlookers and two security guards intervened, her attacker backed off and left the centre.

Hampton, one of the UK's most senior race relations experts, rarely gives interviews and was initially keen to play down the incident, but she has decided to go public because she fears Scotland could become a racial and religious tinderbox.

"It was my first experience of a racial attack in 15 years of living in Glasgow, " she said. "I was so distressed. You never know how you will respond to these things until it happens to you personally.

"I had a strong feeling it was international issues impacting on a local community - you saw it after 9/11. I think I was mistaken for a Muslim. I am concerned the crisis in the Middle East is going to have an effect on local areas.

Ordinary people are going to be abused.

She added: "The face of racism is changing - it is not about black and white any more, it is much more complex than that. We assume racism happens in poor areas and is associated with young people, but this was a man in his 50s with his wife, in an affluent shopping centre. If it happened to me it can happen to anyone."

She said she decided not to report the attack to police because she considered it more important to use the incident to raise public awareness of the pressure building on local race relations.

Last year, CRE chair Trevor Phillips provoked a storm of controversy when he warned that the UK was "sleepwalking" into racial segregation.

The Avenue's security manager, Steve Brewster, confirmed he had stepped in after reports of an incident involving a man and woman. "It's the first time I have witnessed anything like this in the 10 years I have been here, " he said.

A Strathclyde Police spokeswoman said there had been nothing to suggest racial attacks were on the rise as a result of Middle East tensions. However, race campaigner Mark Brown, of the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees, said the police were being "complacent".

"We need to be vigilant, because every time there is conflict in the Middle East there are repercussions in Scotland, primarily Islamophobia, " he said.

NEWTON Mearns, where homes fetch up to GBP1 million, has significant Jewish and Muslim communities. Dr Tufail Shaheen, president of the Islamic Council of Scotland, who also lives in the town, said last night there were generally good interracial and interfaith relations in Scotland, but warned that the Middle East was "getting out of control" and the injustices there could "start trouble".

"I will be writing to the local MP Jim Murphy and local MSP Ken Macintosh to ask them to bring together community leaders such as the imams and rabbis. We have to make sure such an attack does not happen again, " he said.

SNP leader Alex Salmond last night condemned the assault. He said: "Racial attacks occur on a daily basis. There's no question they have been rising over the past year, particularly since the bombings in London. Scotland, by and large, has escaped this, but this unsavoury incident brings home the fact that we are not immune. It is vitally important to keep Scottish society together, particularly at a time of rising international tension."

A Scottish Executive spokesman said:

"There is no place for racism in Scotland. We are concerned to hear of this attack. Any attack, whatever the motivation, is unacceptable and we would urge anyone with any information to contact the police."