{"id":698503,"date":"2026-07-18T14:11:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T14:11:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/698503\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T14:11:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T14:11:25","slug":"former-west-midlands-police-chief-given-57k-golden-goodbye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/698503\/","title":{"rendered":"Former West Midlands Police chief given \u00a357k ‘golden goodbye’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former boss of West Midlands Police has been given a payout worth \u00a357,800 after he retired, following criticism of a decision to ban Israeli football fans from a match against Aston Villa.<\/p>\n

Craig Guildford received the payment for “loss of office” on top of his \u00a3220,800 salary according to figures from the most recent set of accounts, external<\/a> published by the force.<\/p>\n

The document shows Guildford received a total pay package of \u00a3344,500 in the 2025\/2026 financial year, which included a pension contribution of \u00a365,900.<\/p>\n

The former chief’s retirement was confirmed in January after both Downing Street and the home secretary said they had lost confidence in his leadership<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Guildford had faced numerous calls to resign after apologising for providing incorrect evidence to MPs, which included a denial that AI was used in the report which led to the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from the game on 6 November.<\/p>\n

Announcing his retirement, the 52-year-old blamed what he described as the “political and media frenzy” for his decision to step down.<\/p>\n

“I have carefully considered my position and concluded that retirement is in the best interests of the organisation, myself and my family,” he said at the time.<\/p>\n

West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Simon Foster welcomed that decision and said it had avoided what might otherwise have been a complex and costly process.<\/p>\n

News of the payout has been criticised, however, with Lord Austin of Dudley, a former minister and prominent campaigner against antisemitism reported in The Times saying it was “an appalling use of taxpayers’ money.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former boss of West Midlands Police has been given a payout worth \u00a357,800 after he retired, following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-698503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}