How police lied again and again about the risks from Israeli fans

When Maccabi Tel Aviv were drawn to play Aston Villa in the Europa League last August, few could imagine that a single fixture would damage the fabric of British policing.

On Wednesday, in a scathing 11-page report on the actions of West Midlands Police and its leader, Craig Guildford, His Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary, Sir Andy Cooke, described how officers fabricated and retro-fitted 'exaggerated and untrue' evidence to justify their ban on the Israeli fans, made misleading public statements and failed to engage with the Jewish community.

THE 'EXAGGERATED' EXCUSES FOR A BAN

West Midlands Police based their case for banning Israeli fans on disorder during a previous match, when Maccabi Tel Aviv travelled to Amsterdam to face Ajax in November 2024.

Officers told The Aston Villa Safety Advisory Group at a meeting on October 7 that 5,000 Dutch officers had to be deployed for several days to deal with disorder.

Sir Andy found no evidence to support this. It later emerged that the incorrect figure came from an entirely unrelated game in Paris.

WMP also wrongly asserted that 'over 200 of the 2,800 Israeli fans who travelled to the November 2024 Ajax fixture were linked to the Israeli Defence Forces'. Sir Andy called this a 'conflation of multiple sources of information'.

At a Commons hearing last month, it emerged police decided to ban the fans because of fears that local Islamist community groups in Birmingham were preparing to arm themselves for an attack. 

And rather than deal with the threat emerging at home, they opted to ban the opposition.

THE 'PACK OF LIES'

One of the key pieces of evidence cited by West Midlands was the claim that the day before the Ajax fixture approximately 500-600 Maccabi fans were 'intentionally targeting Muslim communities'.

Sir Andy found there was some evidence of targeting individuals, but no evidence of a threat to communities around Amsterdam.

One senior commander wrongly stated that 500-600 Maccabi fans had been tearing down and setting fire to Palestine flags in the Dutch city. 

The mayor of Amsterdam later confirmed that there was only one report of a person attempting to set fire to a single Palestinian flag.

Another inflammatory claim was that 500-600 Maccabi fans were 'committing serious assaults on Muslim taxi drivers'. The inspectorate could only find in the Dutch reports one such an assault.

It was also suggested by West Midlands Police that 500-600 Maccabi fans had been 'throwing innocent members of the public into the river'. 

Sir Andy said this was wholly inaccurate. In fact, the only fan who ended up in the canals was a Maccabi Tel Aviv supporter, thrown in by members of a pro-Palestinian group.

WMP also told SAG that several Dutch police officers were injured 'during the sustained confrontation', when, in reality, the only slight injury was when one Dutch officer sustained 'hearing loss'. 

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp on Wednesday called the dossier a 'pack of lies from start to finish'.

CONFIRMATIONAL BIAS

Sir Andy said West Midlands Police 'greatly exaggerated' the case for a ban by blaming Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters for creating the trouble. 

He accused the force of 'confirmation bias' saying the misleading way the case was presented about the behaviour of the Maccabi fans allowed WMP to achieve its 'preferred tactical option' – banning the fans.

In effect, police gave the 'SAG members little or no option but to accept that reducing to zero the ticket allocation for away fans was the only viable course of action to protect the public'.

He said the 'wholly exceptional decision' should have been subject to greater challenge and consideration within the force.

Concerns have also been raised about bias among SAG members, including local councillor Mumtaz Hussain who had published a video calling for Aston Villa to cancel the fixture and Birmingham councillor Waseem Zaffar had written in the local paper that he would boycott the match.

THE 'AI HALLUCINATION'

Part of the dossier of evidence presented to the SAG by police was a fictional match dredged up by an Artificial intelligence tool.

Officers said they had considered evidence from previous Maccabi fixtures, including the 'most recent match [the club] played in the UK against West Ham United in the UEFA Europa Conference League group stage on November 9, 2023'. It later emerged that no such fixture existed.

When questioned later by the home affairs committee, Mr Guildford said the mistake was made by 'one individual doing one Google search', and strenuously denied any wrongdoing, claiming that the force did not use AI tools in the preparation of the report.

But just hours before Sir Andy's bombshell report dropped, Mr Guildford was forced to apologise for misleading MPs after the reference to a non-existent game was found to be an 'AI hallucination' produced by Microsoft's AI tool, Copilot.

THE 'COVER-UP'

In the face of universal condemnation when the force announced the unprecedented ban, senior officers set about trying to justify their actions.

WMP claimed it had engaged the local Jewish community, but that didn't happen until after a ban had been recommended.

One member of the Jewish community from the Community Security Trust warned the force: 'If Maccabi fans were banned, it would… feel [like] an attack on the Jewish community [and] in light of recent events in Manchester it would appear insensitive to single out a community for this.' 

As the furore grew, WMP then claimed it could not speak to Jewish community members 'out of respect for a number of High Holy Days'.

But Sir Andy said: 'I don't accept this. I believe that the force missed opportunities, both before and during these religiously significant periods.'

He accused the force of issuing 'misleading public statement's presenting 'an imbalanced picture'.

THE CHIEF'S FAILURES

In summary, Sir Andy 'shortcomings in intelligence handling, ineffective engagement with the local Jewish community, poor record keeping, and an imbalance in the force's communications'. 

Sir Andy said he did not believe officers were 'influenced by political interference, anti-Semitism… or malign intent.'

But he expressed surprise and concern at the chief constable's 'apparent lack of foresight in respect of the predictable repercussions of a number of their decisions' including the ban.

He added that he should have declared a 'critical incident' and briefed the local police and crime commissioner 'when it became clear that public trust and confidence were at risk'. 

This may prove fatal for Mr Guildford's career as the decision whether he should be sacked lies in the hands of the local PCC Simon Foster.