After months of widespread protests across the UK, the police in West Midlands looked at multiple intelligence reports and concluded that protests and violence would be inevitable if the match went ahead and fans from Maccabi Tel Aviv were allowed to travel to Aston Villa's ground. Their advice was that away fans should not be granted tickets to the event.
The issues at the core of this decision are about alleged antisemitism rising in the UK, presumed violence of a group of fans with an uncertain intelligence picture, and how decisions were made with these analyses trading off against each other.
He resigned because of that process leading to the Home Secretary no longer having confidence in him.
I don't think the misleading of the select committee would have helped him, but he gave an answer based on all that he knew at that point in time, with the best of intentions. The fact he hadn't been briefed isn't his fault. The fact he leaned into a decision that had wide-ranging political ramifications without first opening up the discussion to more stakeholders is his fault, and it's why he's no longer in the job.
The body that made the recommendation, the "Safety and Advisory Board" met several times and changed their report multiple times. When it was finally released they redacted large parts of the decision making process including saying that:
* The police didn't want the match to go ahead (prior to any evidence for that)
* Two local Muslim councillors (Labour and Lib Dem) had been lobbying against it going ahead with one saying (quote) 'we are the voice of the people'
Additionally:
* They edited the report saying risk to local muslim residents went from Medium -> High
* They edited the report saying risk to fans travelling went from High -> Medium.
* They adjusted the number of police needed from 1200 -> 5000 in order to try and justify the decision.
When the full unredacted report was leaked, then they were put on the back foot and falsely threw out that they'd got the evidence (including of local muslim residents in Amsterdam being thrown in a river, which didn't happen) from a Dutch Police report, which wasn't true.
Anyone with a brain in the police should know that recommending cancellation or banning away fans from a Champion's League game is a major international news
story. The chief of police needs to be on top of the details and 100% sure that the evidence is there.
This story has been horribly misreported in the mainstream media. Suffice to say that the AI gaff was the very thinnest pretence for a politically motivated firing. The true reason being that West Midlands Police made the UK govt furious for suggesting that maybe Maccabi were violent thugs rather than persecuted victims, which goes against prevailing official narratives WRT Israel.
I'll share my opposing view point. Whilst Maccabi fans may contain hooligans, that's not really surprising for football fans. Fans travelling within Europe cause trouble all the time.
What is different, is that Maccabi fans were blocked from attending by the police/council when no other sets of fans are given the same treatment. Secondly, the police were aware of plans within the Birmingham Muslim community to attack said fans. Instead of coming down on these people planning violence, they decided to avoid the situation entirely.
Furthermore, they ignored evidence from the Amsterdam authorities who haven't said the Maccabi fans were as riotous as you claim. Using AI hallucinations was just the cherry on the cake.
The "media reporting" section of the article is particularly illuminating - a Zionist influence operation was in full swing afterwards to minimize the bad behavior of the Israeli fans.
Furthermore Maccabee fans have a reputation for hooliganism in Israel itself. So the West Midlands assessment was eminently reasonable.
The manufactured storm over the decision again showcases a broader pattern of insidious Zionist influence over Western institutions. The decision was lawyered to death in a manner only Israelis get the benefit of.
Thank you for actually reading the article. I knew I would get many responses parroting the official narrative because that's what we're being spoonfed, but I'm glad some people are interested in understanding what really happened.
> > when no other sets of fans are given the same treatment
> This treatment is often doled out to clubs' fans. Even in Tel Aviv.
Sorry, what treatment are you talking about exactly? Your parent seems to be referring to the treatment of being "blocked from attending by the police/council". Is that what you mean is often doled out to clubs/fans?
Yes, that's the precise type of treatment I'm talking about: prevented from attending a football game due to security concerns or penalty for poor behavior.
They were banned because during a match in Amsterdam they shouted racist abuse, sang racist songs, did plenty of vandalism, threw an innocent member of the public into a river and assaulted Muslim taxi drivers.
Moreover, most of them have military training which makes the racist abuse, vandalism and assault that much more terrifying.
If an antisemitic football team was half that bad they'd be hauled off to prison never mind banned from football matches.
It later transpired the real reason the Police wanted to ban the group:
"West Midlands Police did have "high confidence intelligence" that members of the local community in Birmingham were planning to arm themselves to attack Maccabi supporters."
Because the police didn't want to upset the "local community" (which is predominantly Muslim), they hunted around for reasons to ban them as that was easier than EG enforcing the law and stopping people getting attacked by mobs.
Right next door to Aston Villa is Birmingham's Perry Bar ward, where they elected the independent MP Ayoub Khan, for what seems to be his support for the Palestinian side of the Israel-Palestine war.
The West Midlands police were keen to give the impression that they were even-handed and fair in banning Maccabi fans, claiming they consulted multiple faith communities in Birmingham, and besides Maccabi fans are rotters, look at what they did at this other match.
The other match did not exist. The Jewish community did not ask for the Maccabi fans to be banned. Those were lies.
> As the match was played last month, pro-Palestinian protesters, including Independent MP Ayoub Khan, gathered outside the stadium, waving flags and banners calling for an end to violence in Gaza.
In my view, the West Midlands police probably had partisan community leaders like Mr Khan tell them to keep Jewish/Israeli fans out of Birmingham or they'd cause a riot, and the police meekly went along with this, then concealed this true reason, and made up bullshit reasons for banning the fans... which they have been caught out on, because they used a chatbot that hallucinated falsehoods and they didn't even verify it before using it as justification to a Parliamentary select committee.
That is what is known as misleading Parliament. That's why the chief's position is untenable.
I worry the precedent is backwards, the source of the error suffers no repercussions.
In areas where we move away from humans doing work into humans checking the work of agents, we should be worried about an arrangement where the human is present only as an accountability sink for the mistakes of the agent.
It's not clear what happened from this news report.
His error in judgement may have been he hadn't investigated the problem sufficiently. Then falsely testified to the government. That's a big deal on its own.
The officer involved might have been fired or reprimanded, we don't know from that article.
An organisational administrator can stop their team using Copilot and tell them not to use other tools. If the officer had used tools after that then they should indeed be disciplined
A gen AI tool doesn't spontaneously open up and say "Hey, Maccabi Tel Aviv fans are hooligans". The intent is usually from the user. It's quite possible that the officer prompted the AI while in Word with something like "Help me write a reason we should ban these fans".
Probably? But across a large org, "a worker bee doing X cost the previous CEO his job" is a far stronger lesson than "a worker bee doing X cost him his job".
With both MS and Google pushing "AI" on everything, it's possible no one realized they're reading an "AI" summary and the Copilot branding was what was on Word.
Hey btw, how do "AI" summaries on Google search look? Exactly like honest [1] results, like they did with ads?
[1] If there are any honest results left on a Google search. My impression is everything is from content mills, be it "AI" or human slop.
Same. The fact that he stepped down harkens back to a time when officials took responsibility for their gaffs. Given the current pedigree of public officials, I'd rather that he stayed on, instead of being replaced by someone worse
Talk about a misleading headline.
After months of widespread protests across the UK, the police in West Midlands looked at multiple intelligence reports and concluded that protests and violence would be inevitable if the match went ahead and fans from Maccabi Tel Aviv were allowed to travel to Aston Villa's ground. Their advice was that away fans should not be granted tickets to the event.
The issues at the core of this decision are about alleged antisemitism rising in the UK, presumed violence of a group of fans with an uncertain intelligence picture, and how decisions were made with these analyses trading off against each other.
He resigned because of that process leading to the Home Secretary no longer having confidence in him.
I don't think the misleading of the select committee would have helped him, but he gave an answer based on all that he knew at that point in time, with the best of intentions. The fact he hadn't been briefed isn't his fault. The fact he leaned into a decision that had wide-ranging political ramifications without first opening up the discussion to more stakeholders is his fault, and it's why he's no longer in the job.
[delayed]
> Talk about a misleading headline.
Something I always expect from TheRegister.
Come on, that's not the full story at all.
The body that made the recommendation, the "Safety and Advisory Board" met several times and changed their report multiple times. When it was finally released they redacted large parts of the decision making process including saying that:
* The police didn't want the match to go ahead (prior to any evidence for that)
* Two local Muslim councillors (Labour and Lib Dem) had been lobbying against it going ahead with one saying (quote) 'we are the voice of the people'
Additionally:
* They edited the report saying risk to local muslim residents went from Medium -> High
* They edited the report saying risk to fans travelling went from High -> Medium.
* They adjusted the number of police needed from 1200 -> 5000 in order to try and justify the decision.
When the full unredacted report was leaked, then they were put on the back foot and falsely threw out that they'd got the evidence (including of local muslim residents in Amsterdam being thrown in a river, which didn't happen) from a Dutch Police report, which wasn't true.
Anyone with a brain in the police should know that recommending cancellation or banning away fans from a Champion's League game is a major international news story. The chief of police needs to be on top of the details and 100% sure that the evidence is there.
The evidence was there. They committed plenty of violence and were loudly and openly racist during their match in Amsterdam.
It was pretty telling that this news story hyperfocused on the one AI image and didnt even address all of the actual evidence. Classic PR move.
>>that protests and violence would be inevitable
God forbid they enforce the law.
This story has been horribly misreported in the mainstream media. Suffice to say that the AI gaff was the very thinnest pretence for a politically motivated firing. The true reason being that West Midlands Police made the UK govt furious for suggesting that maybe Maccabi were violent thugs rather than persecuted victims, which goes against prevailing official narratives WRT Israel.
I have only found one news source that actual tells the story properly (warning, long read): https://whispering.media/the-maccabi-gospel/
I'll share my opposing view point. Whilst Maccabi fans may contain hooligans, that's not really surprising for football fans. Fans travelling within Europe cause trouble all the time.
What is different, is that Maccabi fans were blocked from attending by the police/council when no other sets of fans are given the same treatment. Secondly, the police were aware of plans within the Birmingham Muslim community to attack said fans. Instead of coming down on these people planning violence, they decided to avoid the situation entirely.
Furthermore, they ignored evidence from the Amsterdam authorities who haven't said the Maccabi fans were as riotous as you claim. Using AI hallucinations was just the cherry on the cake.
Maccabee fans in Amsterdam - indulged in racist chants like "Death to Arabs" and "There are no more babies in Gaza" (because they're dead)
- Beat an Arab taxi driver
- Tore a Palestinian flag from a woman's balcony and attempted to break in to the apartment.
After they FAFOd and got their asses handed to them the media treated them like the second coming of Anne Frank.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2024_Amsterdam_riots.
The "media reporting" section of the article is particularly illuminating - a Zionist influence operation was in full swing afterwards to minimize the bad behavior of the Israeli fans.
Furthermore Maccabee fans have a reputation for hooliganism in Israel itself. So the West Midlands assessment was eminently reasonable.
The manufactured storm over the decision again showcases a broader pattern of insidious Zionist influence over Western institutions. The decision was lawyered to death in a manner only Israelis get the benefit of.
Thank you for actually reading the article. I knew I would get many responses parroting the official narrative because that's what we're being spoonfed, but I'm glad some people are interested in understanding what really happened.
> when no other sets of fans are given the same treatment
This treatment is often doled out to clubs' fans. Even in Tel Aviv.
> > when no other sets of fans are given the same treatment
> This treatment is often doled out to clubs' fans. Even in Tel Aviv.
Sorry, what treatment are you talking about exactly? Your parent seems to be referring to the treatment of being "blocked from attending by the police/council". Is that what you mean is often doled out to clubs/fans?
Yes, that's the precise type of treatment I'm talking about: prevented from attending a football game due to security concerns or penalty for poor behavior.
Individual fans are frequently banned. How many other occasions can you name where no away fans were permitted at a game?
They were banned because during a match in Amsterdam they shouted racist abuse, sang racist songs, did plenty of vandalism, threw an innocent member of the public into a river and assaulted Muslim taxi drivers.
Moreover, most of them have military training which makes the racist abuse, vandalism and assault that much more terrifying.
If an antisemitic football team was half that bad they'd be hauled off to prison never mind banned from football matches.
> If an antisemitic football team was half that bad they'd be hauled off to prison never mind banned from football matches.
Individuals are often banned from football matches. Banning a team from bringing any supporters is rare.
The level of racist violence we saw in Amsterdam is also quite rare.
It used to be more common in the 90s iirc.
Are you sure? For example, you said Maccabi Tel Aviv fans
> threw an innocent member of the public into a river
whereas the BBC says
> It was, in fact, a Maccabi fan who was found in the river
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2xnzye903o
It later transpired the real reason the Police wanted to ban the group:
"West Midlands Police did have "high confidence intelligence" that members of the local community in Birmingham were planning to arm themselves to attack Maccabi supporters."
https://news.sky.com/story/ai-evidence-a-fake-match-and-misl...
And yet the SAB downgraded the risk to fans from High to Medium in their report...
Well, that's not accurate either.
Because the police didn't want to upset the "local community" (which is predominantly Muslim), they hunted around for reasons to ban them as that was easier than EG enforcing the law and stopping people getting attacked by mobs.
It's just more two tier policing in the UK.
Maccabi Tel Aviv have been travelling to Europa League away matches every few weeks:
https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/clubs/57477--m-tel-avi...
Why is it only Birmingham that saw fit to ban them?
> Why is it only Birmingham that saw fit to ban them?
It's a complete mystery...
FYI: there is a growth of sectarian and antisemitic behaviour in the UK.
Last year, a man named Jihad Al-Shamie attacked a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur and killed two congregants before he could be stopped.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd63p1djgd7o
Antisemitic attacks have increased. Jews do not feel safe in Birmingham.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpvdxrr0mxpo
Right next door to Aston Villa is Birmingham's Perry Bar ward, where they elected the independent MP Ayoub Khan, for what seems to be his support for the Palestinian side of the Israel-Palestine war.
The West Midlands police were keen to give the impression that they were even-handed and fair in banning Maccabi fans, claiming they consulted multiple faith communities in Birmingham, and besides Maccabi fans are rotters, look at what they did at this other match.
The other match did not exist. The Jewish community did not ask for the Maccabi fans to be banned. Those were lies.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98ng15qmy9o
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cev82g41vpdo
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxw2nv6vzzo
> As the match was played last month, pro-Palestinian protesters, including Independent MP Ayoub Khan, gathered outside the stadium, waving flags and banners calling for an end to violence in Gaza.
In my view, the West Midlands police probably had partisan community leaders like Mr Khan tell them to keep Jewish/Israeli fans out of Birmingham or they'd cause a riot, and the police meekly went along with this, then concealed this true reason, and made up bullshit reasons for banning the fans... which they have been caught out on, because they used a chatbot that hallucinated falsehoods and they didn't even verify it before using it as justification to a Parliamentary select committee.
That is what is known as misleading Parliament. That's why the chief's position is untenable.
> there is a growth of sectarian and antisemitic behaviour in the UK.
Gaza.
That police “intelligence” relies on a google search rather than internal records or in exchange with other precincts and databases is ridiculous.
It wasn't because of the AI hallucinations but the intent of the document the hallucinations appeared in.
And the fact that he initially blatantly lied about AI being used
There were multiple failings.
The police should be banned from using AI in any form
the police should also be banned from using google, reddit and youtube.
Yes
True.
The judiciary are using it too: https://www.scottishlegal.com/articles/overwhelming-support-...
The Judiciary's New Clothes
this is true of many fields.
everyone else too
Just wait till the UK police decide to outsource social media Wrong Think detection to LLM's.
They are likely already doing it
A wonderful precedent. Now if only it could be applied to other professions, and lower-profile cases...
Agreed. All humans need to learn to fact-check their sources. Especially those in decision-making roles.
"Trust but verify', very often equals 'fuck it, I'll do it myself'.
I worry the precedent is backwards, the source of the error suffers no repercussions.
In areas where we move away from humans doing work into humans checking the work of agents, we should be worried about an arrangement where the human is present only as an accountability sink for the mistakes of the agent.
It's not clear what happened from this news report.
His error in judgement may have been he hadn't investigated the problem sufficiently. Then falsely testified to the government. That's a big deal on its own.
The officer involved might have been fired or reprimanded, we don't know from that article.
Is it just me (English as a second language but very fluent) or is this extremely hard to read? Does this even grammar?
If you're referring to the headline in the article, it's slang. To "cop out" means you are giving up without a fight.
The Register tends to use a lot of puns/colloquialisms etc
But the cop who generated the report is still on staff and free to do more idiotic things in the future?
An organisational administrator can stop their team using Copilot and tell them not to use other tools. If the officer had used tools after that then they should indeed be disciplined
A gen AI tool doesn't spontaneously open up and say "Hey, Maccabi Tel Aviv fans are hooligans". The intent is usually from the user. It's quite possible that the officer prompted the AI while in Word with something like "Help me write a reason we should ban these fans".
> stop their team using Copilot
> If the officer had used tools after
They didn't use tools. They did a Google search and assumed the results didn't originate from an AI tool.
The lesson from the article is that even if you don't use AI tools, AI content may still creep into your investigation.
They specifically used Copilot according to the article.
It doesn't say they used Copilot. It says they used output *from* Copilot.
> his force used fictional output from Microsoft Copilot
That doesn't mean they used it. They apparently got it from Google
> officers had found this material through a Google search
And apparently that source either used Copilot or the source of their source used Copilot, etc.
Probably? But across a large org, "a worker bee doing X cost the previous CEO his job" is a far stronger lesson than "a worker bee doing X cost him his job".
It’s a strong message to senior management to insert proper oversight.
It’s not a strong message to line employees to use their brains.
I'd say the exact opposite, "doing this will get YOU fired" is the strongest possible message.
I'd rather that the cops who actually used the AI slop had been reprimanded, and the chief had been kept...
I wonder if this was one of those Google AI "summaries" that people are so happy to trust.
> I wonder if this was one of those Google AI "summaries" that people are so happy to trust.
"Microsoft Co Pilot" (sic) is being called out as the tool that was used.
Does Microsoft have anything similar to Google's AI summaries on Bing or inside other Microsoft products, like Windows?
With both MS and Google pushing "AI" on everything, it's possible no one realized they're reading an "AI" summary and the Copilot branding was what was on Word.
Hey btw, how do "AI" summaries on Google search look? Exactly like honest [1] results, like they did with ads?
[1] If there are any honest results left on a Google search. My impression is everything is from content mills, be it "AI" or human slop.
Same. The fact that he stepped down harkens back to a time when officials took responsibility for their gaffs. Given the current pedigree of public officials, I'd rather that he stayed on, instead of being replaced by someone worse