by Canaan Lidor
A report faulted police for relying on “hallucinations,” ignoring contrary evidence and failing to consult the local Jewish community before the Maccabi ban.
Senior British police relied on false, AI-generated information to justify banning Israeli soccer fans in Birmingham last year, ignoring contradictory facts and failing to consult local Jews, a British parliamentary committee said on Sunday.
These findings were part of a Home Affairs Committee report on the decision of the West Midlands Police to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from the Europa League fixture against Aston Villa team in Birmingham in November.
The report confirmed many allegations by critics in the media and beyond. The exclusion of Israelis in Birmingham became an international scandal that underlined authorities’ failures in confronting anti-Israel vitriol, including when it targeted local Jews.
West Midlands Police’s former chief constable, Craig Guildford, retired early last month because of the affair.
“The evidence used to assess the threat level posed by Maccabi fans was partly based on false information generated by AI that gave a misleading picture of the violence around their fixture with Ajax in Amsterdam,” the Home Affairs Committee said.
“The report finds that West Midlands Police were overly reliant on inaccurate and unverified information for decision-making that proved wholly inadequate to stand up to subsequent scrutiny. Evidence that supported pre-held narratives was readily accepted, while contradictory evidence from authoritative sources was seemingly ignored,” the Committee added.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews, in a statement on Sunday, welcomed the report.
“We call on the police and ministers to consider the committee’s recommendations carefully to ensure lessons are learned,” it said.
The gathering of evidence by West Midlands Police is subject to a separate and ongoing investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct, the Committee noted.
Guildford and Assistant Chief Constable Mike O’Hara had both testified before the Committee that their inquiry into Maccabi did not rely on AI. But the Committee wrote that its members had found that AI was used, via the Microsoft Copilot platform, resulting in so-called hallucinations about violence that erupted in Amsterdam in 2024.
In November 2024, hundreds of Muslims and Arabs in the Netherlands coordinated an attack on Israeli Maccabi fans who were in Amsterdam for a match. West Midlands Police cited this as the grounds for the ban, claiming that Dutch police told them that Israeli fans instigated violence. Dutch police later denied having said this.
The AI hallucinations included claims that 2,000 Dutch police had been deployed in November 2024, that “people were thrown into the river” and that the disorder was “well organized and targeted towards Muslim communities.”
The only people found in a canal in Amsterdam on Nov. 7-9 were Israelis. Police had a thin deployment of a few dozen officers in Amsterdam’s center when the violence broke out. Muslims had not been targeted, but those who targeted Jews were Muslim or of Muslim descent.
Assuming Guildford was misinformed when he denied the use of AI, he had demonstrated a “remarkable lack of professional curiosity […] not to interrogate the evidential basis to furnish himself with accurate information ahead of our session on 6 January,” the report said.
The Committee found “no evidence that the WMP response was motivated by antisemitism but it is clear the force failed to take appropriate steps to engage with Jewish communities […] in stark contrast to its active consultation with other communities,” the Committee also said.
A senior officer working under Guildford, Assistant Chief Constable Mike O’Hara, claimed in December that the Jewish community of Birmingham had supported the ban. He apologized for making this claim after the leaders of the community disputed and protested it.
Concerns remain, the report said, that the decision-making that led to the ban “may have been unduly influenced by political pressure.” Councillors had a “disproportionate opportunity to exert influence,” undermining trust that decision-making was based on evidence and safety and not political considerations.
The Home Office, the Committee added, “failed to recognise the significance of the decision to ban away fans and to coordinate effectively across government.” As a result, the government was “aware of the likely intention to ban, yet failed to intervene” in time to prevent the ban.
“The next permanent Chief Constable of West Midlands Police should continue the work to rebuild trust with the Jewish community as a priority,” the report said in one of its recommendations.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews acknowledged this recommendation in its reaction. “We highly value relationships of trust with the police, and we are actively supporting the local community in this process,” the Board’s statement read.
Other recommendations included improving evidence quality and challenging assumptions by police and municipal authorities reviewing police recommendations. Elected politicians should not be among the reviewers, the recommendations also said. A more robust scrutiny process should be implemented and an escalation mechanism for major decisions, and a culture of transparency and accuracy in police evidence and briefing practices is needed, the report stated.
Canaan Lidor
Source: https://www.jns.org/uk-lawmakers-confirm-cops-used-ai-false-data-to-ban-israelis/
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