Maccabi Police Chief Must Go, Says Home Secretary
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has said she no longer has confidence in Craig Guildford, the Chief Constable of West Midlands Police at the centre of the Maccabi Jewish fan ban row, and he should be sacked. The Telegraph has more.
Speaking in the Commons, the Home Secretary said she felt Craig Guildford should leave his role as Chief Constable of West Midlands Police over his handling of the ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans travelling to a match against Aston Villa in November.
Critics argued that his decision was politically motivated rather than based on genuine safety concerns, and claimed that Guildford misled Parliament with his version of events before the Home Affairs Committee.
In the wake of the row, Mahmood announced new powers to give the Home Secretary the authority to sack police bosses, who can currently only be fired by locally elected police and crime commissioners.
Guildford has so far ignored mounting calls for his resignation, including from his own council leader, with sources close to him suggesting he was “lawyering up” and would fight any attempt to remove him.
Mahmood told the Commons she had lost faith in Guildford’s leadership after receiving a “damning” report on the controversy by Sir Andy Cooke, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary.
The Home Secretary told MPs: “The ultimate responsibility for the force’s failure to discharge its duties on a matter of such national importance rests with the Chief Constable, and it is for that reason that I must declare today that the Chief Constable of West Midlands Police no longer has my confidence.”
Sir Andy found that West Midlands Police conducted “little engagement” with the Jewish community and was guilty of “confirmation bias”, seeking only evidence to support its desire for a ban rather than “following the evidence.”
This saw the force focus on a Dutch game where there had been violence over peaceful matches in Greece, Ukraine and Denmark.
Mahmood said the most “disquieting” elements of the report were “exaggerated or simply untrue” claims by West Midlands Police about alleged violence by Maccabi fans in Holland.
Sir Andy also found that the force had made a series of “misleading” public statements, which overstated the threat posed by Maccabi fans and understated the risk posed to the Israeli supporters.
Inaccurate claims included links between fans and the Israeli Defence Forces, the targeting of Muslim communities, the mass tearing down of Palestinian flags and attacks on police officers and on taxi drivers.
Worth reading in full.
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I hope that just before he goes he cleans out the rats’ nest that sent these lying reports up to the top and exposes the bias and pressure from ‘the community leaders’.
They’ve got previous…
…The same West Midlands Police that in the aftermath of the Southport child-murders admitted Birmingham was essentially abandoned to a violent Muslim mob because “community leaders” told them in advance that their demonstration would be “policed within themselves.”
Seems to me they are throwing him under the bus. So much for honour among thieves.
Precisely. I hope he does not go quietly. There seems to be some hope of this in the suggestion that he’s ‘lawyering up’.
Do you think he deserves compassion? I don’t.
No, but I hope he takes others down with him, assuming others up and down the chain of command (going right to the top) are culpable.
Come on tof this Turd is just part of a big pile of…
The whole police “service” needs to go. It is politicised, clearly recruits people with low grade thinking who do not understand their limits and duties, who are bullies, largely incompetent, who no longer police crime, and in whom all public trust has been lost.
We need a sheriff system – locally elected on non-partisan lines for fixed terms, who appoints deputies. Accountable to and paid by local communities – which can also fire poor performers.
Remember that the term “Sheriff” has a special definition in Scotland. There they are equivalent to Magistrates and Judges, so they could not use that term in the Police service. Fixed term & political top dogs are more in line with the Mayoral system – say a ‘Police Mayor”, or a Mayor’s “Police deputy”. That would be like the Met Police in London. Whether that’s a good idea, I’ll stick on the wall. https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/mayors-office-policing-and-crime-mopac
The much reviled police and crime commissioners were supposed to do that and I thought it was a good idea but as with everything touched by HMG it turned out to be a crock of shit presumably thanks mostly to the civil service ,but whatever.
He’s going to be ‘interviewed’ by his PCC later in January. Too little, too late.
Simon Foster was elected as Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands in May 2021 and served until May 2024. He was then re-elected as PCC in May 2024 and will serve a four-year term.
He’s a Labour PCC having defeated the Conservative candidate Tom Byrne.
I’d be very interested to know who the other 52 people were.
It feels like the Krays being asked who should lead the Flying Squad.
Yes apparently he’s a corbynite FFS
2012. Thanks Cameron/Clegg.
“Mahmood announced new powers to give the Home Secretary the authority to sack police bosses, who can currently only be fired by locally elected police and crime commissioners.”
Really? The Pakistani Muslim, Hijab-wearing, White Men-hating woman decides to GIVE HERSELF MORE POWER over British Police???
Who gave her permission to do that? Did anyone ever vote for any of this?
So, apparently he’s got to go because he lied to Parliament…
And ?
Thing is – the actual lie was probably not the reported lie. He told them it was not an AI generated report and now he’s had to say something like ‘Er – it probably was AI generated. Sorry!’. Who the Hell cares? It was a crap report and it was wrong and the stupid sod backed it to the hilt saying ‘trust us’ – when he could have said ‘I’ll just go and check.’.
Does anybody know the date from which we started electing imams and are white British part of the electorate?
Only Muslim white Brits.
Wouldn’t it be great if somebody noted that THERE WAS NO BAN.
Given that Maccabi decided not to subject their fans to the Jew-hating Birmingham people by refusing their ticket allocation the was nobody to ban anyway.
The banning of fans at Villa Park is under the jurisdiction of Birmingham City Council as they are the designated body under the stadium safety legislation. The police can provide advice to the SAG who can then report all input to the council for them to decide. The police have no authority to ban fans from entering the stadium.
It would be a benefit to have a review of the whole legal process and its application in this case as it seems the council officers, SAG and the police did not understand their roles as set out in legislation.
If the process had been followed and resulted in a decision not to allow the visiting fans then in the notification to Aston Villa would have been their option to seek a legal review of the ban. But there was no ban.
Well thank goodness for that.
I thought there must be some mistake. Of course, there was no ban.
Just like Bobby Ewing never died – it was just a dream.
All these comments and not a single one mentioning the fact that this particular Chief Constable is a man. Interesting, the difference in response, isn’t it?🤔 Almost like one’s sex only becomes relevant when the person in question is female…according to you and your supporters, anyway.🤷♀️
“….and as we often see, putting them [women] in a high level police uniform is a disaster.”