fake imagesA West Midlands police chief declined to imply that members of the Jewish community had agreed to the exclusion of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a football match in Birmingham, police said.
Asked repeatedly by MPs on Monday whether representatives of the Jewish community had said they did not want Maccabi fans attending the Europa League match against Aston Villa on November 6, West Midlands deputy chief constable Mike O’Hara said “yes”.
The Sunday Times reported that he has since written a letter to members of the Jewish community asking for an apology.
The decision to ban fans from Villa Park was widely criticised, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer “angry at the decision”.
West Midlands Police had classified the match as high risk based on “intelligence and previous incidents”.
Questioned on Monday about the justification for the Home Affairs Committee’s decision, ACC O’Hara said some representatives of the Jewish community in Birmingham had said they did not want Maccabi fans attending the match.
“Did community members say they didn’t want Maccabi fans there, and did that include any Jewish representatives?” asked Conservative MP Karen Bradley, chair of the committee.
“Yes,” ACC O’Hara responded.
Bradley asked again if “there were representatives of the Jewish community who said they didn’t want Maccabi fans there” and ACC O’Hara said “a variety of beliefs, backgrounds and ethnicities… were very concerned.”
Asked again if this included Jewish people, he said yes, adding that it had been documented in the force’s risk analysis.
A police spokesman said: “It was never the officer’s intention to imply that there were members of the Jewish community who had explicitly expressed support for the exclusion of Maccabi fans.”
They said the force looked forward to greater engagement with the committee and “will ensure this is clearly articulated as it has been with representatives of the Jewish community”.
“We recognize that this has been a difficult time for our local Jewish community, so we have participated and will continue to actively participate,” they added.
In a letter to a local representative seen by the Sunday Times, ACC O’Hara wrote: “I am aware that there is some dismay within the local Jewish community at what I presented on Monday.
“A series of questions were asked, often with multiple parts and subpoints. Please apologize and make it very clear that it was not my intention to imply that there were members of the Jewish community who had explicitly expressed support for the exclusion of Maccabi fans.”
The decision by the Birmingham Safety Advisory Group (Sag), a panel including Birmingham City Council and the police, to ban fans was partly based on police intelligence.
fake imagesGiving evidence to the committee, Chief Constable Craig Guildford said the police assessment had been based mainly on information provided to the force by Dutch police commanders before the match.
“The information provided by the Dutch was very, very clear in terms of it reflecting the days before, during and after the match as a result of clashes between Maccabi ultras and the local Muslim community,” Chief Constable Guildford said.
“From what we were told, the ultras were very well organized and militaristic in their way of acting. They attacked members of the local community, including taxi drivers. They tore down flags. They threw people into the river.”
However, Dutch police said police justified the ban by using false information about disorder involving Maccabi fans attending a match in Amsterdam last year, the Sunday Times previously reported.
The government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, Lord Mann, also told the Home Affairs Committee that only one flag had been torn down the night before the match and that there was only one incident with a taxi driver.
In the wake of the ban, the Prime Minister criticized the move, saying that “we will not tolerate anti-Semitism on our streets” and that the police’s role was to “ensure that all football fans can enjoy the match, without fear of violence or intimidation.”
The match against Aston Villa, monitored by more than 700 officers, took place without serious disorders and only a handful of arrests.
Before the match, hundreds of pro-Palestinian supporters and a smaller group of pro-Israeli protesters gathered outside the stadium, waving banners and flags.
