West Midlands Police Chief Constable Craig Guildford has issued a formal apology to the Home Affairs Select Committee after admitting that a decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a Europa League tie against Aston Villa was based on fictitious intelligence generated by Artificial Intelligence.
The force originally justified the ban using a non-existent match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and West Ham United, an error Guildford now confirms “arose as a result of a use of Microsoft Copilot,” despite previous claims that the mistake was a simple Google search.
In an email to the committee, Guildford stated, “I would like to offer my profound apology to the Committee for this error, both on behalf of myself and that of ACC O’Hara,” while maintaining that his initial testimony was based on an “honestly held” belief that no AI had been involved.
The revelation has sparked serious concerns regarding the competence of police intelligence protocols, as the fictional fixture was allowed to pass through internal checks and influence a high-profile public order assessment before the error was corrected.