West Midlands Police have been accused of “appeasement” after they admitted that they banned Israeli football fans from Birmingham because they feared sections of the community would attack them.
In an excruciating appearance before the Commons home affairs committee, the most senior figures in the force attempted to justify the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a match against Aston Villa on 6 November last year, sparking political uproar, with Sir Keir Starmer “angered by the decision”.
Assistant Chief Constable Mike O’Hara insisted that the move was “based on safety” and “there was no conspiracy”.
The admission comes as new documents revealed that there were concerns that community groups in Birmingham may arm themselves.
The fixture had been classified as high risk by West Midlands Police based on “current intelligence and previous incidents”, with the force pointing to violent clashes and hate crime offences that occurred during the 2024 Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam. But the Netherlands Police disputed information in a West Midlands Police report, which detailed justifications for the ban.
Giving evidence to MPs on Tuesday, Assistant Chief Constable O’Hara denied that West Midlands Police had only focused on intelligence from Dutch police, and pointed to “a huge degree of consternation” from the community around the arrival of Maccabi fans.
He admitted: “There was a lot of intelligence that people would actively seek out Maccabi fans and seek violence towards them.
“There was a range of options available. The challenge, particularly, was that the Maccabi fans would target the community. This was all forming part of the heat of the situation.”
Tory MP and former Home Office special adviser Nick Timothy hit out at the police, claiming: “The mob said Israeli fans aren’t welcome… and the police chose appeasement, and we all know where that ends.”
He accused senior officers of “lying” repeatedly in an attempt to explain their actions and failing to take on “extreme elements in the communities they are supposed to police”.
The new documents, which detail the minutes from safety advisory group meetings on the reasons behind the ban, show that the assessment made by the police was changed late to downgrade the risk to Maccabi fans to medium and upgrade the risk to people in the local community to high.
Mr Timothy told Times Radio: “What I can say with confidence is what we know from the documented evidence, and that is certainly that the police fitted the evidence to suit the predetermined decisions that they and the safety advisory group had already reached.”
But the Jewish Board of Deputies took aim at West Midlands chief constable Craig Guildford over the shock revelations.
In a statement they said: “It seems that the police reached a decision first and then searched for evidence to justify it apparently influenced by the threat posed by local extremists.
“The police any assessment of the significant to the Jewish community, and claimed to have consulted the local community in advance of the decision, which they had not.”
They added: “Accountability matters. Considering the chief constable’s role in these events a change of leadership is essential.
“If the chief constable does not step aside, responsibility lies with central government to intervene.”
The police officers received a hostile reception from MPs on the committee who struggled to understand why the Maccabi fans had been banned and why notes were not kept of crucial meetings.
Dame Karen Bradley, the Tory chair of the committee, said: “It feels to us like you felt you needed to justify banning these fans and that scraping was done to find a reason.”
In further embarrassment, the senior police officers admitted that the decision to ban Israeli fans from a football match against Aston Villa was based on fake information found in a Google search of information from a match with West Ham in 2023.
However, they also conceded that they had not made notes of their conversations with Dutch police about further information behind the ban and had “made assumptions” about the number of officers needed to police the event.
Challenged about the quality of intelligence he had given the committee previously on information regarding Maccabi’s match with Ajax in 2024, Chief Constable Guildford said: “I do stand by what was said. It was said on the basis of the information given to us.”
He said: “The information and intelligence we received and documented was all gone through. The mistake that was made in terms of West Ham was one individual doing one Google search because he couldn’t find the reference.”
Cheshire Chief Constable Mark Roberts, head of the UK football policing unit, explained: “We normally plan for away fans and their risk fans to seek disorder with rival fans. The difference here was there was a threat that some Maccabi fans might seek confrontation with the local community.
“Clearly, there was chatter on social media where there was evidence that some of the Maccabi fans, or [people who were] purporting to be, were gloating about what had gone on and that was being responded to. That was a distinguishing dynamic. This was a unique set of circumstances.”
At the time, Sir Keir condemned the ban as “the wrong decision” and home secretary Shabana Mahmood has since ordered the policing watchdog to examine how forces in England and Wales provide risk assessments to safety advisory groups, which inform on measures around high-profile events.