The Albany Gazette - UK interior minister says 'lost confidence' in police chief over Maccabi fan ban

She was speaking after an independent inquiry found local police "overstated the threat posed by Maccabi Tel Aviv fans" in order to justify banning them from November's Aston Villa fixture.

"The chief constable of West Midlands police no longer has my confidence," Mahmood told parliament.

The report and condemnation comes after months of growing scrutiny on the West Midlands police force and its under-fire chief constable Craig Guildford, as some of the evidence used to justify the ban was proven to be flawed.

The review led by police chief inspector Andy Cooke accused the force of "confirmation bias".

"Rather than follow the evidence, the force sought only the evidence to support their desired position to ban the fans," Mahmood told parliament.

Cooke "shows that the police overstated the threat posed by the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, while understating the risk that was posed to the Israeli fans if they travelled to the area", Mahmood added.

West Midlands police had classified the match in Birmingham as "high risk", citing previous Maccabi games including a Europa League encounter in Amsterdam which saw clashes between locals and Israeli fans.

UK police cited evidence from Dutch police to back the decision.

However, the report found that the evidence about the behaviour of Israeli fans in Amsterdam cited by West Midlands police was "all either exaggerated or simply untrue".

Mahmood noted that while the government did not have the power to remove Guildford, it had been more than 20 years since a home secretary last made such a statement of no confidence in a police chief.

- Use of AI -

The decision to ban the fans announced in October was slammed by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer as well as by Israeli politicians, who claimed that it was antisemitic.

The match went ahead amid heavy security, but without Maccabi fans after the Israeli team turned down their away ticket allocation.

The report findings were published hours after Guildford apologised to MPs for giving erroneous evidence about the decision.

In its intelligence report for the game, police cited a match between West Ham and Maccabi Tel Aviv -- which never took place.

When questioned about this by lawmakers earlier this month, Guildford insisted the error was the result of a Google search and denied that the force had used artificial intelligence.

However, in a letter to MPs on Wednesday, Guildford admitted that the erroneous information was due to the use of Microsoft Copilot, an AI chatbot.

"I would like to offer my profound apology to the committee for this error," Guildford said, adding there was "no intention to mislead the committee".

(P.Clark--TAG)