Shabana Mahmood ‘would have sacked’ West Midlands Police chief

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has told the BBC she would have sacked the chief constable of West Midlands Police if she had possessed the power to do so.

Craig Guildford announced his retirement from the force on 16 January in the wake of criticism surrounding the banning of fans of an Israeli football club from attending a match at Villa Park last November.

Mahmood’s comments follow government plans, announced on Friday, to grant ministers new powers to dismiss chief constables deemed to be performing poorly.

She told the Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme she had lost her confidence in Guildford amid the row over Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters.

Currently, only police and crime commissioners have powers to dismiss chief constables, but Mahmood told Kuenssberg it was vital ministers be allowed to act in situations when things had gone “horribly wrong”.

Guildford has been replaced by Acting Chief Constable Scott Green who said earlier this month that actions by West Midlands Police in the lead-up to the ban had damaged public trust in the force and its relationship with Jewish communities.

The force had been tasked with assessing security risks prior to Maccabi’s Europa League tie against Aston Villa in Birmingham last year. But a preliminary review of that process by the police watchdog found “confirmation bias” had influenced the controversial decision to bar travelling support from attending Villa Park.

Several “inaccuracies” were also found to have been included in a police report ahead of the match, including reference to a non-existent fixture between Maccabi Tel Aviv and West Ham.

On the programme, Mahmood, Labour member for Birmingham Ladywood, said West Midlands Police was her local force, telling Kuenssberg “if you can’t trust an operational risk assessment made by police I think that is something that costs a lot of confidence in policing our country”.

Mahmood had previously told the Commons she had lost her confidence in Guildford, with Downing Street issuing a similar statement.

Mahmood said: “For future cases, it is absolutely important that home secretaries have the power to intervene when things have catastrophically broken down.

“I think it is important because when something goes horribly wrong with policing in this country, everyone does rightly look at the home secretary and think ‘what are you going to do about it?’ and at the moment I can say ‘I actually can’t do anything about it’.”

When Guildford announced his retirement, the 52-year-old did not offer an apology and blamed what he described as a “political and media frenzy” for his decision to step down.

In evidence to MPs scrutinising the events surrounding the match, Guildford initially suggested the erroneous information had been identified in a Google search or through social media, but he later confirmed it was the result of using the AI tool Microsoft Copilot.

The force has since said it is undertaking a review into the use of AI, with ACC Green taking the decision to block access to Microsoft Co Pilot on West Midlands Police systems until further notice.

The force has admitted that it “overstated the evidence” that was used to make the decision to ban Maccabi fans, and that it “did not engage early enough with the local Jewish community” ahead of time.