‘They lied and lied again’: Police in the dock over Maccabi ban and vetting failures
The Daily T
The Telegraph
4.1 • 706 Ratings
🗓️ 9 January 2026
⏱️ 32 minutes
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Summary
West Midlands Police stand accused of lying in order to justify the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a Europa League game against Aston Villa at Villa Park in November.
The force had cited concerns over potential violence in their initial decision, but it has now emerged that members of the local Muslim community in Aston were preparing to arm themselves if Maccabi fans had come to the game.
Jewish broadcaster and Aston Villa fan Jonny Gould tells Camilla and Tim that Craig Guildford, the Chief Constable of West Midlands Police, should resign after a “monstrous” decision that “victim-blamed” Israeli fans.
Camilla and Tim also reflect on the news that the Met Police managed to allow an accused child rapist allowed into the force because he ticked a diversity box.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Telegraph. |
| 0:09.1 | The police are in the dock. |
| 0:12.0 | West Midlands is accused of lying and lying again about the Maccabee Villa football ban. |
| 0:18.6 | And a vetting blunder that saw an accused child rapist allowed into the Met because he |
| 0:24.5 | ticked a diversity box. |
| 0:26.6 | Welcome to The Daily Tea with me Tim Stanley. |
| 0:29.0 | And me, Camilla Tomony. |
| 0:46.6 | Tim, a special episode on Friday on policing for two good reasons because the telegraph has extensively covered the criticisms that have been made of the West Midlands |
| 0:51.5 | force over the ban on those Maccabee Tel Aviv fans coming for that |
| 0:56.2 | Aston Villa match. |
| 0:58.2 | And I think the headline on Gordon Rainer's piece sums it up. |
| 1:01.0 | They lied and lied and lied. |
| 1:02.8 | And we'll get into that. |
| 1:04.1 | But also an extraordinary second story suggesting that the vetting at the Met has gone so badly wrong that they allowed a rapist in to tick a diversity box, which we will get on to in just a minute. |
| 1:19.6 | But some of the findings around the Maccabee situation, which have been highlighted actually by former columnist here, now Tory MP, Nick Timothy. |
| 1:27.3 | He's done this forensic deep dive |
| 1:29.5 | into what went on. It's also a villa fan, we should add. We should add that. And a Birmingham |
| 1:34.0 | boys from and an expert on counterterrorism and issues of community relations. But there was this |
| 1:39.2 | extraordinary committing meeting where Chief Constable Craig Guilford can't really answer any questions beyond, |
| 1:45.9 | well, the response basically to, well, why didn't you look into this and why didn't you do that |
| 1:50.1 | and why didn't you realize that when you were accusing the Maccabee Tel Aviv fans of plotting violence, |
| 1:55.2 | actually you had Islamist extremists and protesters on the streets plotting to tool up to arm themselves in the face of |
... |
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