A West Midlands Police chief did not mean to imply that members of the Jewish community had agreed with the exclusion of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a football match, the force has said.
Mike O’Hara, West Midlands’ assistant chief constable, made the comments on Monday while giving evidence about the controversial decision to ban Maccabi fans from the Europa League game against Aston Villa in November.
“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,” the force said in a statement on Saturday.
ACC O’Hara has apologised to members of the Jewish community, the Sunday Times reported.
The decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending the game in Birmingham on 6 November was widely criticised, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer “angered by the decision”.
The match had been classified high risk by West Midlands police based on “current intelligence and previous incidents”.
Questioned on the justification for the decision by the Home Affairs Committee on Monday, ACC O’Hara said that some Jewish community representatives in Birmingham had said they did not want Maccabi fans attending the match.
“Were members of the communities saying that they did not want the Maccabi fans there, and did that include any Jewish representatives?” Conservative MP Karen Bradley, chair of the committee, asked.
“Yes,” ACC O’Hara responded.
Bradley asked again whether “there were Jewish community representatives who said that they did not want the Maccabi fans there” and ACC O’Hara said that “a range of faiths, backgrounds and ethnicities… were very concerned”.
Asked again if this included Jewish people, he said yes and added it had been documented in the force’s risk analysis.
On Saturday a spokesperson for the force said that it was “never the intention” of ACC O’Hara to imply members of the Jewish community supported the ban.
They said the force expected further engagement with the committee and will “ensure that this is clearly articulated as it has been with representatives of the Jewish community”.
“We recognise that this has been a difficult time for our local Jewish community, we therefore have and continue to actively engage,” they added.
The decision by Birmingham’s Safety Advisory Group (Sag), a panel that includes Birmingham City Council and the police, to ban away fans was partly based on police intelligence.
Giving evidence to the committee, Chief Constable Craig Guildford said the police evaluation had been based primarily on information given to the force by Dutch police commanders ahead of the game.
“The information provided from the Dutch was very, very clear in terms of they reflected on the days before, during and after the match as a result of clashes between the Maccabi ultras and the local Muslim community,” Chief Constable Guildford said.
“In terms of what we were told, the ultras were very well organised, militaristic in the way that they operated. They attacked members of the local community, including taxi drivers. Tore down flags. People were thrown into the river.”
However, Dutch police said the force justified the ban using false intelligence about disorder involving Maccabi fans attending a game in Amsterdam last year, the Sunday Times previously reported.
The government’s independent adviser on antisemitism Lord Mann also told the Home Affairs Committee only one flag had been torn down the night before the game and there was only one incident with a taxi driver.
In the wake of the ban, the prime minister criticised the move, saying “we will not tolerate antisemitism on our streets” and that the role of police was “to ensure all football fans can enjoy the game, without fear of violence or intimidation”.
The match against Aston Villa, policed by more than 700 officers, passed off without serious disorder and only a handful of arrests.
Before the game hundreds of pro-Palestinian supporters and a smaller group of pro-Israeli protesters gathered outside the ground, waving banners and flags.
www.bbc.com
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