Jewish football fans ban chief constables clings to job as boss refuses to sack him

HOME SECRETARY BERATES COP"S LACK OF PROFESSIONALISM

- BY MICHAEL KNOWLES Home Affairs Editor

UNDER-FIRE police chief Craig Guildford was last night clinging to his job despite mounting calls for him to be sacked.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she has lost confidence in the Chief Constable of West Midlands Police after falsified intelligence led to Maccabi Tel Aviv fans being banned from a match against Aston Villa.

Ms Mahmood said the force “overstated” the threat posed by Israeli football fans while underplaying the risk from local Islamist mobs ahead of the match.

A police watchdog probe into the scandal, led by His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Andy Cooke, found the intelligence was “exaggerated” in some cases, while in others it was “untrue”.

But Labour Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster last night refused to immediately sack the Chief Constable.

He said: “I await the Home Affairs Select Committee report.

“It is my statutory duty to hold the Chief Constable to account for the totality of policing in the West Midlands.

'We have witnessed a failure of leadership'

“To give all these issues full and proper consideration, I will be taking this matter to a meeting of my Accountability and Governance Board, held in public, on January 27 and asking questions of the Chief Constable.”

Sixteen days before the match, the force was told that it was wrong to ban supporters from attending the Europa League fixture.

West Midlands Police initially claimed away fans could not attend because of hooliganism fears.

It said there were 500 “hardcore Maccabi supporters” who were “very well organised, uncooperative and militaristic” and accused of carrying out “indiscriminate attacks on Muslim taxi drivers, flag burning, marches and Islamophobic chanting” during a previous match in Amsterdam.