West Midlands Police chief says decision to retire is in best interests ‘of the organisation, myself and my family’ as he steps down with full pension after misleading MPs and public over Maccabi Tel Aviv fan ban
The disgraced Chief Constable of West Midlands Police has retired with a full pension after finally giving in to mounting calls to quit over the Maccabi Tel Aviv fan ban.
Craig Guildford, 52, said the decision to retire was in best interests ‘of the organisation, myself and my family’, claiming the ‘political and media frenzy’ was becoming ‘detrimental to all the great work undertaken by my officers and staff’.
Mr Guildford had been facing immense pressure to leave his post for misleading MPs and the public over the decision to bar supporters of the Israeli side from a European game against Aston Villa.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she had lost confidence in Mr Guildford on Wednesday but the police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands, Simon Foster, had declined to sack him.
Mr Foster, who is the only person with the power to sack Mr Guildford, confirmed Mr Guildford’s departure in a statement outside police headquarters in Birmingham, before refusing to answer questions.
He said: ‘The Chief Constable, Craig Guildford, has today retired from West Midlands Police with immediate effect. In doing so, he has acted with honour and in the best interests of West Midlands Police and our region. I welcome his decision.
[…]
Guilford described serving as Chief Constable of West Midlands Police as ‘the honour of my career’.
Ms Mahmood responded to Mr Guilford’s retirement saying the police chief had ‘done the right thing’.
The development comes after farcical scenes yesterday when the Chief Constable gagged his own officers from questioning why he wouldn’t quit as he desperately attempted to cling on.
A day after a mauling in the Commons which saw Ms Mahmood and West Midlands MPs, councillors and community leaders calling for him to resign over the scandal, Mr Guildford returned to his office yesterday bullishly telling staff he would not bow to pressure.
But the beleaguered chief then spent the day on the phone to other chief constables begging him to quit after the Home Secretary said the saga was damaging trust and confidence in policing.
In the final blow, a Downing Street spokesman said the Government ‘no longer’ had confidence in Mr Guildford, effectively forcing his hand.
The Daily Mail understands that Mr Guildford had hoped the scandal would ‘blow over’ and was consulting lawyers about his options believing he had been ‘unfairly treated’, but his position looked increasingly isolated as the day wore on.
Yesterday it emerged that the Chief Constable is still the national police lead for professional standards, ethics, complaints and misconduct – even though the Government does not believe he is fit to remain in office.
As a non-statutory body, the National Police Chiefs Council has no power to remove him from the key post.
In an extraordinary farce, Mr Guildford is listed to chair a misconduct hearing in the case of a PC accused of ‘discreditable conduct’ on the same day the chief is due to face an accountability panel himself after misleading the public over the ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans attending an Aston Villa match last November.
Mr Foster has ordered the chief to answer questions over the scandal at a governance board on January 27.
Yesterday Suky Samra, the chair of the West Midlands Police and Crime Panel, which has the job of scrutinising Mr Foster’s work, described the chief’s position as ‘very questionable’.
The Daily Mail: continue reading
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