Fender

The Brookwood Church in Simpsonville only just disqualified Jerry Sidell from serving there in any capacityA registered sex offender who was sentenced to prison in the 1980s after he told authorities that he had molested several boys whom he met through his religious work with Christian youth in Georgia was later allowed to participate for decades in ministry at a South Carolina church.The Brookwood church, a southern Baptist institution in the South Carolina city of Simpsonville, only just disqualified Jerry Sidell from serving there in any capacity, after he joined it in 1999 and fulfilled various ministerial roles. Continue reading...

Bridget Phillipson says government would not have to consider releasing prisoners early if Tories had created more capacityCells to hold newly arrested people could run out without the early prison release scheme, a government minister has said.Bridget Phillipson defended the plan to address the prison capacity crisis in England and Wales by releasing thousands of prisoners early, which has been criticised by domestic abuse charities, bereaved families and probation officers among others. Continue reading...

State government concedes ‘breach bail, go to jail’ laws risks overcrowding in jails, while one expert warns they may lead to ‘cruel outcomes’The Queensland government’s latest law and order crackdown – subjecting some children as young as 10 to a mandatory sentence of a year behind bars – could lead to “cruel outcomes”, according to human rights lawyers.In documents tabled with the legislation on Thursday, the government conceded its laws, dubbed “breach bail, go to jail”, would breach human rights and risk further straining the state’s overcrowded jails, youth detention centres and police watch houses. Continue reading...

Campaigners accuse ministers of trying to grab headlines with announcement before a working system is readySurvivors of violent crime and families of victims have criticised the UK government for announcing “world first” plans to introduce restriction zones for serious offenders freed from prison within a few weeks without spelling out how they would work.Key campaigners who have championed the idea of the zones, designed to “lock” offenders into specific areas, accused the government of seeking to grab headlines rather than providing the detail that would reassure survivors and families. Continue reading...

Treatment is already required by parole boards in several countries, but some feel the practice is unethicalThousands of sex offenders in England and Wales could get libido-suppressing drugsFor some prisoners with problematic sexual arousal (PSA), “images of sex flood their minds” all of their waking hours, according to Prof Belinda Winder, a leading forensic psychologist who has evaluated the use of drugs to control libidos.“I remember talking to one guy a few weeks after he started taking the medication. He said: ‘It’s amazing. I followed a film plot. I wasn’t just looking for when I could see bra straps, when I could see nipples, when someone’s going to bend over so I could see their bum.” Continue reading...

Voluntary use of sex drive-suppressing medication to expand to 20 prisons and expert says it could be rolled out widely by late 2028Chemical suppression: why the UK is exploring libido control drugs to treat sex offendersDrugs that help control the libidos of people who have committed sexual offences could be rolled out for thousands of male prisoners in England and Wales from December 2028, an expert has said.Prof Belinda Winder, who has evaluated the use of sex drive-suppressing medication in prisons, said about one in four sex offenders – equating to 3,750 current prisoners – would be considered for the treatment. Continue reading...

• Tottenham captain Cristian Romero is reportedly seeking a surprise transfer to North London rivals Arsenal this summer. • In other transfer developments, Liverpool is showing interest in signing forward Bradley Barcola, while Manchester United is actively targeting a new defender. • These potential moves signal a period of significant squad restructuring for several top Premier League clubs.

Delays to sexual assault charges and failures to report past convictions in court hearings gave Simon Levy chance to attack more womenCatastrophic errors left a prolific and proven sex offender free before he murdered two women in London, it can be revealed.On Friday an Old Bailey jury found Simon Levy, 40, guilty of murdering Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo in March 2025 and Sheryl Wilkins five months later.The CPS admitted errors at three court hearings in May, June and August 2025, which ended in Levy remaining free. It would not specify publicly what those were, but a source authorised to speak for the organisation said they included failing to mention he had been arrested for Valencia-Trujillo’s murder, and that it could find no record or mention of Levy’s past sexual assault convictions, nor that he was a suspect in a 2024 rape. The CPS said: “We accept there was relevant information regarding bail that was not provided to the court when bail applications were being considered. Our actions fell short of the standards that victims, families and the public are entitled to expect … We could and should have taken a more robust approach to representations about bail.” By May 2025, police wanted Levy remanded, fearing he posed a “high risk of reoffending” with his crimes “escalating”.Levy failed to attend three crown court hearings for the train attacks, and the CPS accepts there is no evidence of a warrant being sought for his detention. For two he claimed illness, for the other that he was not informed. His final non-appearance in crown court was on 11 August 2025. A fortnight later he murdered Wilkins. A CPS source said individuals involved in the Levy case had been disciplined.The assaults on the London tube network and trains were investigated by BTP. Officers arrested Levy, who was travelling on a stolen Oyster travel card, but handed it back to him, unaware it was stolen. With it he travelled to south London to commit his first murder, and carried out further sexual assaults on trains.BTP admitted the charging of Levy for his sexual assaults on trains in November 2024 was held up because of a delay in holding an identification parade after his arrest. It meant his bail was extended and during this delay he attacked and raped another woman and murdered Valencia-Trujillo, a mother of two.BTP identified him as a suspect and charged him but never searched his home. Peter Fulton, BTP’s head of crime, said: “There’s a fine line between going fishing and breaching someone’s human rights.” He said that every woman who reported Levy for attacking them on a train saw him charged and convicted. When the Met, which investigated the murders, searched Levy’s home, evidence was found about his attack on the prison officer.The police watchdog has placed two Met officers under investigation over whether Levy was supervised correctly as a person on the sex offender register. A constable is under investigation for gross misconduct, meaning he could be dismissed. The other officer, under investigation for misconduct, is a detective sergeant.BTP said it had not referred its errors to the police watchdog. Instead it has moved one officer, who it says delayed the holding of the ID parade, out of investigations, and given a supervisor words of advice. Continue reading...

With the debate over prison overcrowding and what to do about it raging, one initiative offers an alternative solutionAs the prison overcrowding crisis shows no sign of abating and the debate rages over early releases, an initiative in the West Midlands offers an alternative to custodial sentences.The Guardian was offered rare access to the project, under which, instead of being sent to prison, convicted offenders work on the improvement of waterways and green spaces around Smethwick. It is a small part of the community payback scheme, which in total clocked up an estimated 5m hours across England and Wales in the last year. Continue reading...

• Arsenal have granted midfielder Christian Norgaard permission to undergo a medical with Everton as part of a proposed £7 million transfer. • Norgaard has already been excluded from Arsenal's squad traveling to Dublin to facilitate the move. • The development comes as the transfer window remains open until September 1, with other clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City targeting Pep Chavarria and Pedro Neto.

Duetting stars surpass record set in 1953, when crooner Frankie Laine hit the top with I BelieveSam Fender and Olivia Dean have scored the longest running UK No 1 single in history with Rein Me In, beating a record that has stood since 1953.Back then, the UK singles chart had been running for less than a year and contained just 12 songs when I Believe, a bombastic ballad by US crooner Frankie Laine, hit No 1 and spent a total of 18 weeks on the chart. Continue reading...

• Sam Fender and Olivia Dean have made chart history with their collaboration "Rein Me In," breaking the record for the longest-running number one single by a British act. • The track surpassed previous records to become the most enduring chart-topping hit by domestic artists in the UK. • This achievement highlights the significant commercial success and enduring popularity of both artists within the current music landscape.

Exclusive: Deputy PM says opponents have ‘no solutions’ to possible collapse of justice system in England and WalesDrugs, drones and heat: Amber Rudd and David Lammy begin search for answers to prisons crisisOpponents of plans to release rapists and sex offenders early from prison have “no solutions” to halt the criminal justice system’s possible collapse, David Lammy has said.Under pressure from Labour MPs – including the former safeguarding minister Jess Phillips – to curb the early release scheme, the deputy prime minister said failing to implement it could leave no capacity across jails in England and Wales in November. Continue reading...

Sally Dowling admits her office pitched the story but says it was not authorised by her, while her colleagues call her ‘a person of integrity’Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastA New South Wales parliamentary committee report has made findings accusing the state’s top prosecutor of giving false evidence under oath to an inquiry and recommended the attorney general investigate whether there are grounds to remove her from office.The upper house inquiry voted 4-3 to find that the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, Sally Dowling, authorised pitching a story to radio station 2GB about a sentencing hearing involving a young person, and “falsely denied having done so in her evidence to the committee”. Continue reading...

• Top European clubs, including Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, and Bayern Munich, are reportedly monitoring Barcelona defender Jules Koundé for a potential transfer. • Juventus has reopened talks with free agent midfielder Leon Goretzka, 31, who is evaluating his career options after Germany's World Cup exit. • Reports from Gazzetta dello Sport suggest Juventus has an unconfirmed deal in place for Paris Saint-Germain striker Randal Kolo Muani.

• Cybersecurity firm Semgrep discovered that the Chinese LLM GLM 5.2 outperformed other standard models in testing, achieving a 39% F1 score for identifying true positives and negatives. • The emergence of high-performing models from Chinese firms indicates that frontier AI capabilities are no longer exclusive to US-based companies. • This trend is concerning for cyber-defenders as it broadens the gap between attackers and defenders by making powerful, offensive AI tools more widely available.

• A Bitdefender report reveals that over 50% of surveyed organizations in Singapore lack full visibility into how their employees are utilizing AI tools. • This lack of oversight has increased corporate concerns regarding "shadow AI," where staff use unauthorized tools that could lead to critical data leaks and security breaches. • The findings highlight a significant security gap for CISOs and decision-makers as AI adoption outpaces the implementation of governance frameworks.

Increase comes after seven-year campaign by mothers of victims for a change in the minimum sentence for domestic murderOffenders who kill their current or ex-partner face spending an extra 10 years behind bars, with a new minimum sentence of 25 years in England and Wales, under plans announced by David Lammy.The increase, announced by the justice secretary on Monday, comes after a seven-year campaign by mothers of victims for a change in the minimum sentence for domestic murder. Continue reading...

Sharper, who pleaded guilty or no contest to raping women in four states, was transferred to a halfway house in May Convicted serial rapist and former National Football League champion Darren Sharper has registered as a sex offender in his home state of Virginia, after being transferred from federal prison to a halfway house there, according to official records.With a projected 2028 release date nearing, the US Bureau of Prisons (BoP) recently confirmed that the 50-year-old Sharper had been moved on 27 May from a federal correctional institution near Elkton, Ohio, to either home confinement or a facility colloquially known as a halfway house overseen by the agency’s residential re-entry management office in Baltimore.Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organizations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html Continue reading...

• A new report from Check Point identifies misinformation and targeted phishing attacks as primary threats to election security. • The analysis warns that attackers are leveraging stolen credentials from previously hacked campaign and election websites to launch these attacks. • While highlighting these systemic vulnerabilities, the report notably declines to name the specific entities or actors responsible for the misinformation.

• Sam Fender, Rosalía, and Jacob Alon were named winners at the Ivor Novello Awards on Thursday, an event dedicated to celebrating the craft of songwriting. • The ceremony included a special tribute to Elton John, featuring a performance by Lola Young to honor his contributions to music. • The academy praised Elton John for building one of the most distinctive catalogues in British music over the last two decades, citing tracks such as "Smile," "LDN," and "Madeline."

• OpenAI launched Daybreak, a new cybersecurity platform built on GPT-5.5 and Codex Security, according to an AI news roundup published May 15, 2026. • The platform is designed to help organizations identify threats, generate patches, and verify remediation across code and systems, with access initially limited to “critical cyber defenders.” • The move puts OpenAI into direct competition with Anthropic’s Mythos and reflects growing concern that AI-assisted hacking is shifting from theory to practice.

The state’s opposition said case was proof ‘the justice system is broken’Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe Victorian Labor government says it will “do everything” it can to “toughen consequences” for young offenders after police withdrew 109 charges against a 14-year-old girl, in a case the opposition described as proof “the justice system is broken”.The girl, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, had been facing 109 charges, including reckless conduct endangering serious injury, motor vehicle theft and burglary, after an alleged two-month crime spree earlier this year when she was aged 13. Continue reading...

Ashley MacIsaac, who is seeking $1.5m in civil lawsuit, says inaccurate information led to concert cancellationAn acclaimed Canadian fiddle player has launched a $1.5m civil lawsuit against Google, alleging that the online giant defamed him by falsely identifying him as a sex offender in an AI-generated summary of his life and career.Ashley MacIsaac, a three-time Juno award-winning musician, filed the claim in the Ontario superior court of justice, asserting that Google was liable for the “foreseeable republication” of its AI-generated Overview feature, which previously published defamatory claims that he had been convicted of multiple criminal offences, including the sexual assault of a woman, internet luring involving a child with the intention of sexual assaulting the child, and assault causing bodily harm. Continue reading...

Chris Minns says technology has been ‘weaponised against women, and our laws have not kept pace’Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAfter their marriage of 25 years deteriorated and his wife expressed a desire to leave, a man in regional New South Wales bought a GPS tracking device from an auto parts retailer.He used it to monitor her movements for the month, and up to at least the day before he shot and killed her, and then turned the gun on himself. Continue reading...

• The Arlington Defenders delivered a decisive victory over the Las Vegas Stallions in Week 5 of the United Football League season. • The convincing win showcased the Defenders' offensive and defensive capabilities against a division rival. • The result strengthened Arlington's position in the UFL standings as the season progresses.

Teenager found unresponsive at Feltham YOI, the first such death in England or Wales since 2019Police and the prisons ombudsman are investigating the death of a 16-year-old boy who was being held at a young offender institution in south-west London.The boy was found unresponsive at Feltham YOI on Monday night. He was treated by paramedics before being rushed to hospital but died shortly before midnight. Continue reading...

FoI data reveals that 438 people with criminal convictions were given licences in Wolverhampton, UK’s ‘taxi capital’More than 150 people convicted of violent crimes were granted taxi licences last year by Wolverhampton city council, dubbed the UK’s “taxi capital”, data has revealed.The Guardian obtained data via a freedom of information request that revealed 438 people with criminal convictions were last year granted taxi and private hire driver licences by the West Midlands local authority – which has issued far more taxi licences than any other authority. Continue reading...