Uk Police Apologise To Parliament After Admitting A Major And... (2026)

The force had previously insisted "we do not use AI."

The Chief Constable of West Midlands Police in the United Kingdom has apologised to members of parliament after admitting that a major policing decision had been made "as result of a use of Microsoft Co Pilot [sic]".

The decision was taken in November 2025 to ban fans from the Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv from attending a Europa League match against the Birmingham-based team Aston Villa. It was hugely controversial at the time, with even Prime Minister Keir Starmer questioning the move and calling it "wrong", and MPs have continued digging into why it was made.

The Chief Constable, Craig Guildford, had previously insisted the police "do not use AI" but that a Google search had provided erroneous information used in a report that led to the ban: Notably, the inclusion of a match between Maccabi Tel-Aviv and West Ham that never happened. Now Guildford has written to Karen Bradley, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, admitting that AI was used in assembling the report:

"In preparation for the force response to the HMICFRS inquiry into this matter, on Friday afternoon I became aware that the erroneous result concerning the West Ham v Maccabi Tel Aviv match arose as result of a use of Microsoft Co Pilot," writes Guildford.

"Both ACC O’Hara and I had, up until Friday afternoon, understood that the West Ham match had only been identified through the use of Google [...] 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."

Guildford had previously been grilled by MPs about the inclusion of the non-existent match on December 1, 2025, at which time he said: "Within my narrative, which I have compiled over the weekend, the one assertion in relation to West Ham is completely wrong.

"I am told that is a result of some social media scraping that was done, and that is wrong. That was one element in a document that was eight or nine pages long, but we stand by the key tenets in the document."

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Paul Kohler MP asked Guildford at that December hearing if the force just "did an AI search" and "whacked it into the [report]", to which Guildford responded: "No, not at all. We do a very comprehensive assessment."

Source: PC Gamer