Mr Sims said he was sorry the force got it “so wrong” A police force is due to respond after it was criticised in a report over the installation of ‘spy cameras’ in an area of Birmingham.
More than 200 cameras, both covert and overt, were put up in mostly Muslim areas of the city, paid for with government money to tackle terrorism.
An independent report into their installation said public consultation had been “too little and too late”.
West Midlands Police will respond to the report at a public meeting later.
The cameras were installed in the Washwood Heath and Sparkbrook districts and were put up by the Safer Birmingham Project (SBP), made up of the city council, police and other agencies.
The £3.5m funding for the cameras came from the Terrorism and Allied Matters Fund.
Thames Valley Police was asked to conduct an independent review into their installation which was called Project Champion.
The report was carried out by Sara Thornton, a member of the team which provided the funding.
The report said a lack of transparency over their installation “significantly undermined” police trust and set back relations by almost 10 years.
Human rights lawyers have said they would apply for a judicial review of the camera installation action unless there was a guarantee to remove all of them.
West Midlands Police said it had removed all the covert cameras while Chief Constable Chris Sims has apologised and said none of the cameras were ever used.
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