Embattled police chief Craig Guildford is expected to quit today after Downing Street called for him to go over the Maccabi football fan scandal.
The defiant West Midlands Police leader may have just hours left in the post after the Government withdrew confidence in him, leaving his position virtually untenable.
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 onto office despite the Home Secretary withdrawing confidence in him.
A day after a mauling in the Commons which saw Shabana Mahmood and West Midlands MPs, councillors and community leaders calling for him to resign over the scandal, Mr Guildford returned to his office on Thursday 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.
Local police and crime commissioner Simon Foster, who is the only person with the power to sack him, 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’.
In another development, the Independent Office for Police Conduct announced it is considering whether to launch a conduct investigation after examining a report by Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Andy Cooke which revealed how evidence was fabricated and exaggerated by police to justify the ban.
Yesterday Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: ‘I find it jaw-dropping, actually, that having misled Parliament and misled the public, that the chief constable hasn’t resigned.
‘I find it even more extraordinary that having lost the confidence of the Home Secretary, who is also one of his local MPs and still not resign, I just find that absolutely outrageous.’
He told Times Radio: ‘I honestly thought that anyone with integrity would at that point say, I have to resign.
‘And the fact he hasn’t, I really think, is a stain on his character that if he doesn’t act quickly, he won’t be able to remove.
‘I will be horrified if he is still in post by the end of the day.’
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy also piled on pressure saying it was ‘astonishing’ he had not quit.
Earlier, the force sent a briefing paper to its officers, local police federation and trade unions and West Midlands Police staff associations gagging them from commenting on his fate.
An internal edict warned rank and file officers it would be ‘inappropriate and unprofessional’ to discuss his future, despite politicians across West Midlands siding with the Government that the game was up.
Staff were told that ‘the force is committed to minimising the negative community impact of these matters’.
But the missive quickly backfired when outraged officers leaked the document in protest at being silenced over the scandal causing irreparable damage to the force.
