{"id":283906,"date":"2026-01-14T13:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T13:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/283906\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T13:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T13:16:07","slug":"police-chief-in-uk-apologises-after-ai-error-used-to-justify-maccabi-tel-aviv-ban-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/283906\/","title":{"rendered":"Police chief in UK apologises after AI error used to justify Maccabi Tel Aviv ban \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

West Midlands Police\u2019s chief constable has apologised to MPs for giving them an error in evidence over the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, as Britain\u2019s home secretary is set to address parliament.<\/p>\n

Force leaders have been under fire over the decision to ban supporters of the Israeli<\/a> football team from attending a Europa League match against Aston Villa<\/a> on November 6th.<\/p>\n

Chief constable Craig Guildford wrote to the home affairs committee to apologise for the mistake, after he appeared twice to give evidence over the controversy.<\/p>\n

In a letter to committee chairwoman Karen Bradley, the senior police figure said that evidence given to the committee by himself and Assistant Chief Constable Mike O\u2019Hara that wrong intelligence over a West Ham match with Maccabi Tel Aviv was because of a Google search was incorrect.<\/p>\n

Instead, the \u201cerroneous result\u201d arose from the use of the artificial intelligence<\/a> tool Microsoft Co Pilot.<\/p>\n

Mr Guildford wrote: \u201cBoth ACC O\u2019Hara and I had, up until Friday afternoon, understood that the West Ham match had only been identified through the use of Google.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to offer my profound apology to the Committee for this error, both on behalf of myself and that of ACC O\u2019Hara.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had understood and been advised that the match had been identified by way of a Google search in preparation for attending HAC.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy belief that this was the case was honestly held and there was no intention to mislead the Committee.\u201d<\/p>\n

The police chief has faced mounting pressure and calls to resign over the ban.<\/p>\n

Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were barred from travelling to the game at Villa Park by the local safety advisory group (SAG), which cited safety concerns based on advice from the police force.<\/p>\n

This included a reference by the force to a match between the Israeli club and West Ham United that never happened.<\/p>\n

The decision by the SAG \u2013 which is made up of representatives from the council, police and other authorities \u2013 sparked political outrage, including from prime minister Keir Starmer.<\/p>\n

Since then, doubts have been growing over the intelligence used by police, including disputes over the accuracy of information.<\/p>\n

Mr Guildford has insisted the decision was not politically influenced.<\/p>\n

It comes as home secretary Shabana Mahmood will make a statement to MPs on Wednesday after she ordered an investigation into the move to be carried out by His Majesty\u2019s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services.<\/p>\n

A home office spokesperson said: \u201cThe home secretary has this morning received the chief inspectorate\u2019s findings into the recommendation by West Midlands Police to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending a match against Aston Villa.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe will carefully consider the letter and will make a statement in the House of Commons in response later today.\u201d – PA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West Midlands Police\u2019s chief constable has apologised to MPs for giving them an error in evidence over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,290,4699,18,19,17,71,5446,82,393],"class_list":{"0":"post-283906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-aston-villa","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-keir-starmer","17":"tag-technology","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115893644977663555","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}