Brandon Williams is being chased by MULTIPLE clubs in Britain and abroad after impressing on trial with Championship side - as former Man United star looks to rebuild his career
A talented left back, Williams burst onto the scene at Old Trafford, making his debut at just 19.
However, he has now been without a club for a year since the expiration of his contract at Old Trafford.
Williams has impressed during a trial period at Hull City, with reports locally suggesting that the Tigers are set to offer him a contract.
But his attitude and form during a short spell at the MKM Stadium has alerted others, with Championship rivals and clubs abroad expressing an interest in taking a player who is still only 24.
Williams has come off the bench twice for Hull, impressing in matches against both Spaniard Getafe and Sunderland.
It would mark a return to football for Williams after he was handed a suspended jail sentence for a 99mph car crash
He made 21 Premier League appearances for United, and had loan spells at Ipswich Town and Norwich City, gaining a reputation as a fearless and athletic defender.
Earlier this year Williams confirmed he wanted to resume his career at a new club after being handed a suspended jail sentence for a 99mph car crash. He had admitted charges of dangerous driving and driving without insurance.
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The Guardian
7 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Wednesday briefing: How sentencing policies have led to a failing prison system in the UK
The UK's prison system is in serious trouble. That sentence should come as no surprise to regular readers. But a damning independent review by former prisons watchdog Dame Anne Owers has revealed the whole system came close to total collapse on three separate occasions within a 12 month period. The report lays the blame squarely at the feet of successive governments. Between autumn 2023 and summer 2024, ministers repeatedly failed to get a grip on the growing crisis – so much so that experts were left wondering whether inaction was a political choice. Senior civil servants, fearing a total breakdown of the criminal justice system, kept meticulous records of key decisions and documents in case there was ever a public or parliamentary inquiry. In October 2023, the government started releasing prisoners 18 days early. That number was soon bumped up to 35 days, and then 70. When Labour took office last year, one of its first acts was to announce even earlier releases for prisoners who have served 40% of their sentence. Despite these measures, the system is still buckling. Prisons are running at nearly 97.5% capacity, and this weekend could bring fresh pressure, with large-scale protests expected. To understand why prisons seem trapped in this endless loop of crisis, and what it might take to actually fix things, I spoke to Nick Hardwick, former chief inspector of prisons and current chair of Nacro (National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders). Gaza | An Israeli security cabinet meeting that had been expected to discuss Benjamin Netanyahu's call for the 'full occupation' of Gaza has been postponed amid mounting tensions over whether the plan is feasible. Immigration | YouGov has released polling on attitudes to immigration that shows a clear link between having hardline anti-immigrant views and being ignorant about the level of illegal immigration to the UK. Technology | Google has outlined its latest step towards artificial general intelligence (AGI) with a new model that allows AI systems to interact with a convincing simulation of the real world. Japan| The mayor of Hiroshima has led calls for the world's most powerful countries to abandon nuclear deterrence, at a ceremony to mark 80 years since the city was destroyed by an American atomic bomb. Music | Terry Reid, the British musician whose soaring and soulful voice earned him the nickname 'Superlungs', and whose career intersected with the likes of the Rolling Stones and Jimmy Page, has died aged 75. To really understand what's going wrong, you have to ask: what are prisons actually for? According to Hardwick, prisons are meant to do four things. First, incapacitation: locking up people who are dangerous so they can't hurt others. Second, deterrence: both general (so the rest of us don't break the law) and specific (so that someone who's been to prison doesn't want to go back). Then there's rehabilitation: the idea that time in prison could help someone change. And finally, punishment: not because it necessarily helps the offender, but because society wants to show that serious wrongdoing has consequences. The trouble, according to Hardwick, is that we're failing on every level. 'You can incapacitate people when they're in prison, but most people are going to come out again, and you have to hope they don't come out worse. There's no evidence to support the idea that giving people longer sentences works as a deterrent,' Hardwick said. 'And we know that it's very difficult to rehabilitate people.' Punishment, Hardwick said, is the most powerful reason people support prison and it's what lands politically. 'Whether you're reading the Guardian or the Telegraph, there's widespread anger over certain offences and a belief that harsher punishment is the answer.' But the political appetite for punishment is part of the problem. We've become gluttons for punishment, to repurpose a saying – addicted to the performance of toughness, even when it breaks the very system it's meant to uphold. The arithmetic of the prison crisis The report criticises what it calls a 'salami-slicing approach' to dealing with the crisis, with politicians tinkering at the edges rather than addressing the core problems. That comes as no surprise to Hardwick. 'The prison crisis was entirely predictable. I taught students back in 2021 that there'd be a crisis in 2023 and 2024 because the arithmetic was perfectly clear.' To explain why, Hardwick returns to a metaphor from his conversation with my colleague Archie Bland last year: think of a bath. 'The water's coming in at the same rate, but the outflow is being blocked because people aren't being released as quickly as they were, so the bath fills and overflows. You have to address the basic arithmetic of the prison crisis: you have to stop the prison population growing faster than you can grow capacity.' The factors at play Hardwick argued the increase in the prison population is partly down to the increase in longer prison sentences. He pointed to official statistics (pdf) that show that the average sentence length for all types of offences has increased from 13.7 months in 2010 to 20.9 months in 2023. There was a particularly sharp increase from 2020 to 2023, when average sentences increased from 17.1 months to 20.9 months. 'How we work out whether a sentence is correct is how they relate to one another. If you make sentences longer at the top end of the sentencing range, for murder or knife offences, that has a consequence of pulling all other sentences, including less serious offences, along with them,' Hardwick said. The second factor, and perhaps the most important, is that we're recalling more people to prisons, Hardwick added. 'Most people who leave prison are going to be on a licence, there are conditions they have to meet and if they don't they'll be recalled back to prison. We now recall a much higher proportion of people than we're used to, not because they've committed an offence, but because they've broken some rule.' Reforms are unpopular The problem with the prison crisis is that many of the most effective solutions are politically unpopular, across the spectrum. That's especially true of one of the most impactful: cutting sentencing down. Politicians, both left and right, talk instead about building more prisons. 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Phoebe Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Cricket | England's attempt to regain the Ashes this winter will be broadcast live in the UK by TNT Sports. After agreeing a one-year deal over the weekend TNT now has the rights for all of England's winter tours. Rugby | Wearing boots designed for men causes discomfort for a majority of female rugby players, according to new research which finds as many as 89% of them experience pain from wearing shoes not built for women's feet. Football | The former Arsenal footballer Thomas Partey has appeared in court charged with six sexual offences. The 32-year-old was bailed to appear at the Old Bailey for trial later this year over allegations of rape and sexual assault. The Guardian has a full-width photo accompanying special coverage: 'From above, Gaza is like the aftermath of an apocalypse'. 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The Independent
34 minutes ago
- The Independent
Police to use AI technology to investigate grooming gangs
Artificial intelligence tools will be rolled out to all police forces to tackle grooming gangs. Officers across all 43 forces in England and Wales will gain access to the investigative technology as part of a £426,000 funding boost for the Tackling Organised Exploitation (TOEX) programme. The intelligence and technical experts support forces investigating complex cases such as organised exploitation of modern slavery, county lines and child sex abuse. Some 13 forces currently have access to their apps, which are said to have been used 12,500 times – saving more than £20 million and 16,000 hours for investigators. The expansion, announced by the Home Office, comes after Baroness Casey recommended a national police operation to review cold cases, in her rapid audit on grooming gangs published in June. Operation Beaconport has since been established, led by the National Crime Agency, and will be reviewing more than 1,200 closed cases of child sexual exploitation. Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips said: 'The sexual exploitation of children by grooming gangs is one of the most horrific crimes and we must punish perpetrators, provide justice for victims and survivors, and protect today's children from harm. 'Baroness Casey flagged the need to upgrade police information systems to improve investigations and safeguard children at risk. Today we are investing in these critical tools.' The technology being rolled out can translate large amounts of text in foreign languages from mobile phones seized by police, and analyse a mass of digital data to find patterns and relationships between suspects. NCA director general Graeme Biggar said providing reassurance to victims and their families has been a main focus of the national policing operation since June. He added: 'We must and will ensure their voices are heard and collectively, we will restore confidence that the law enforcement response to child sexual exploitation is without fear or favour, is evidence based and not undermined by fears of inflaming community tensions.' The Home Secretary has also written to police forces to make sure they are collecting ethnicity data as recommended by Baroness Casey. The crossbench peer's report found the lack of data showing the ethnicity and nationality of sex offenders in grooming gangs is 'a major failing over the last decade or more'. The audit found that officials had dodged the issue of ethnicity among the groups of sex offenders for fear of being called racist, but there were enough convictions of Asian men 'to have warranted closer examination'. The Government has launched a national inquiry into the abuse and further details are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.
Evening Standard
36 minutes ago
- Evening Standard
How to watch Arsenal FC vs Villarreal: TV channel and live stream for friendly today
Mikel Arteta will be keen to get some minutes into the legs of every available player if possible as he'll have one eye on the starting XI for the Gunners' Premier League opener away at Manchester United next weekend.
