The curious case of the brummie bobbies gets a sequel

In a crime thriller, the street-savvy detective finds the culprit. In the sordid drama of the Birmingham police decision to ban Israeli fans, it is the Home Affairs Select Committee and Nick Timothy MP who are asking the simple questions and still looking for answers.

The 1 December evidence session with Chief Constable Craig Guildford and his Assistant Chief Constable Mike O Hara was so full of holes, evasions and opaque management speak that they have been invited back for more questioning and to provide more documents.

On 16 October West Midlands Police said they were unable to police a football match unless 2400 away fans from Israel, most of them Jewish, were banned. The decision from the Birmingham City Council Safety Advisory Group, supported by the Police, was based on a police intelligence report.

Something about this story smelled bad from the start. West Midlands Police has more than 8,000 officers. If they needed reinforcements to secure the football match they could have asked for help. The Chief Constable is a specialist public order commander. What was he really afraid of?

As soon as the Aston Villa Maccabi Tel Aviv match was announced by UEFA on 30 August an aggressive campaign to ban the match began. It included all the usual suspects from national organisations who have organised weekly protests and led the historic effort to boycott everything vaguely linked to Israel and long predates the 7 October Hamas attacks and war in Gaza. The match ban campaign included highly vocal local leaders from the muslim community, local councillors and MPs.

We now know that virulently anti-Israel local councillors were members of the Safety Advisory Group that made the decision to ban the Israeli fans. The Chief Constable also met with Ayoub Khan MP, a local MP who had called for the match to be cancelled. West Midlands police did not speak to Israeli police about the very fans they supervise every week and advice from UEFA to allow Israeli fans to attend was ignored.

The police classified the match as ‘high risk’ and said the decision to ban Israeli fans was due to safety considerations and based on intelligence about previous incidents. The Chief Constable said this was largely based on information from Dutch Police commanders when Ajax played Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam on 7 November 2024.

Here is where it gets really strange.

The Amsterdam police, the Mayor of Amsterdam and the Dutch King all condemned at the time a large number of shocking, well-organised and coordinated physical attacks on Israeli fans. This was the subject of extensive media reports and the disturbing details of a 900 person whatsapp group used to coordinate what it called a ‘Jew hunt’ were revealed in the criminal trials of 5 Dutch men convicted of violent crimes against Israeli fans.

Of all those arrested 49 were Dutch and 10 were Israeli. In their evidence to Parliament, West Midlands police claim that they were told a completely different story in a Zoom call with Dutch colleagues, of which there is no written record, a version where the Israeli fans were the aggressors and presented the kind of safety threat that could justify a future travel ban to Birmingham.

The West Midlands Police intelligence report has been subjected to detailed scrutiny and revealed to be full of inaccuracies and exaggerations. As a piece of intelligence, it was remarkably stupid. Clearly written to frame the Israelis, it’s a dodgy dossier where multiple authors likely threw in false information without checks or a proper edit. The authors of the report could face criminal charges for misconduct in a public office and mandatory dismissal from the police.

To make matters worse, when asked by MPs about Police discussions with the local community about the match, Assistant Chief Constable Mike O Hara said all faith groups were involved and had supported a ban on Israeli fans. Asked explicitly if that included the Jewish community he said yes. After an outcry from the Jewish community that this statement was not true he had to issue an apology. The Committee have asked him to correct the record and explain how this false statement was made.

Both the Chief Constable and his Assistant were bizarrely satisfied with their work throughout their evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee. They didn’t seem to realise how much they resembled a pair of dodgy coppers defending questionable evidence, who sought the easiest way out of a tricky situation even if it meant being played from the start by extremists who only wanted one outcome.

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James Sorene is a commentator and writer.

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