West Midlands Police Chief is allowed to retire, NOT sacked

[HappyFace2025]

As thread title - he keeps his full pension.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01/16/maccabi-tel-aviv-israeli-fan-ban-craig-guildford-foster/

That's a fair point.

Nobody in power has any integrity any more. They just cling on for ages, even after they’ve been disgraced. Brass neck for miles.

Yeah protected his pension while not protecting the community who were threatened with violence. How wonderful that a man in a senior police position put himself first.

You would have resigned too if you thought you were going to be sacked to keep your pension whether you were right or wrong . He was probably advised to.

Yes and I'm not going to argue with that. I think when it comes to positions in law and politics, the personal details around salaries and pensions is more open to scrutiny when it's tax payers' money that's being invested. That's a basic given.

Thanks for clarifying.
I think there is some confusion around, and that some people believe he lied in stating that those particular fans have a recent history of aggressive words and behaviour.
He certainly should not have lied about the AI issue, and if he didn't know about it, that is not good either.

People are still confused and distracted by the pension thing. Police officers, like everyone else keep their pensions if they are dismissed. Guildford had already retired once, it is therefore reasonably likely he was no longer paying into a pension scheme any more, so there is no protecting a pension.

The only circumstances a pension can be taken is after a criminal conviction in connection with service. A small number of pension forfeitures take place nationally annually,Wayne cousins is the most well known one.

If Guildford was motivated by money he would have waited to be suspended either on s38 or through the misconduct route. This would have kept the situation rumbling for years at a significant cost to the taxpayer.