West Midlands Police accused of using AI in report justifying Maccabi ban

Guildford denied this, saying: “We do a very comprehensive assessment. We get some of that from partners, other football clubs, the United Kingdom Football Policing Unit and our own intelligence collection, and we also search through social media to see what is trending, what the posts are, who is following the posts and so on. It was a result of that. I say very candidly that that element was wrong, but it had no material impact on that document.”

However, Conservative MP Nick Timothy – who has been vocal in demanding greater transparency from WMP over their support of a ban of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans – claimed that, having run the relevant text of the report through AI-detection tools: “Every single one said it was almost certainly generated by AI”.

The Birmingham-born MP and Aston Villa supporter demanded that the WMP chiefs be recalled to face further questioning from the select committee.

He said the force had been “caught misleading the Home Affairs Committee about this, consulting the Jewish community, and various claims they made about intelligence from the Dutch police.”

This weekend, WMP rowed back on the suggestion, made at the committee by Assistant Chief Constable Mike O’Hara, that members of the Jewish community backed the ban on fans of the Israeli team.

In a statement, the force said: “In answering these questions, it was never the intention of the officer to imply that there were members of the Jewish community who had explicitly expressed support for the exclusion of Maccabi fans.”

It added: “We are anticipating follow-up engagement from the HASC and we will ensure this is clearly articulated as it has been with representatives of the Jewish community.”

Lord Mann, the government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, who testified to the HASC on the same day as Guildford and O’Hara, told the MPs that WMP’s intelligence report “simply doesn't match the Amsterdam reports”, adding: “I think the evidence has been fitted to try and get a solution.”

Last month, the JC obtained a copy a Dutch report, which said that, ahead of a fixture between Maccabi Tel Aviv and local team Ajax, authorities in the Netherlands had noted that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans “do not have a violent reputation”.

They also found that it was the Israeli fans who were the target of “groups that are looking for a confrontation with Maccabi supporters” and, of the 59 arrests that were made, just 10 were Israeli while the remainder were Dutch.

The Mayor of Amsterdam also disputed some of the figures in WMP’s reports on events in Amsterdam.

West Midlands Police have been contacted for comment.