LUCY Connolly has spoken out for the first time and is planning legal action after being released from prison over a racist tweet.
The mum was jailed for stirring up racial hatred against asylum seekers online on the day of the Southport murders.
Not known, clear with picture deskLucy Connolly has spoken out for the first time after being released from prison over a racist tweet[/caption]
SWNSRaymond and Lucy Connolly[/caption]
She was was sentenced to 31 months behind bars in October after being found guilty of inciting racial hatred after she made the post on X.
Connolly – the wife of Tory councillor Raymond Connolly – yesterday walked free from HMP Peterborough after serving less than half her sentence.
Lucy has now broken her silence for the first time since being released.
“I do think the police were dishonest in what they released and what they said about me, and I will be holding them to account for that,” Lucy also told the Telegraph.
A prison source said the former childminder was driven from HMP Peterborough in a white taxi after serving 40 per cent of her sentence behind bars before being released on licence.
The car left the prison via the vehicle airlock – a set of two gates exiting the prison – shortly after 10am.
Connolly’s sentencing had been slammed as an example of “two-tier justice” by some, with husband Raymond calling it a “cruelly long and disproportionate sentence”.
After pleading guilty to inciting racial hatred by publishing and distributing “threatening or abusive” written material on X last year, she was jailed at Birmingham Crown Court.
Her tweet – which was deleted three-and-a-half hours after it was posted – said: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the ba***rds for all I care… if that makes me racist so be it.”
She had made the post the same day three children were murdered by Axel Rudakubana in Southport.
Connolly had tried to appeal her sentence in May but the Court of Appeal dismissed the case.
Following this, husband Ray said he was “heartbroken”, adding: “My wife has paid a very high price for making a mistake and today the court has shown her no mercy”.
Criminals handed shorter sentences than Lucy
LUCY Connolly’s sentence has been slammed by critics as “cruelly long, disproportionate” and as an example of “two-tier justice”.
Over the past two years, countless other criminals were handed shorter sentences, including a rapist, a terror offender, a domestic abuser, and a number of paedophiles.
Jac Davies was handed a 12-month sentence in December, suspended for two years, after receiving child abuse images from the same source as BBC presenter Huw Edwards. He pleaded guilty to both possession of class A drugs and indecent images of children but did not see any time behind bars.
Daniel Ashbrook received a 21-month sentence, suspended for two years, after pleading guilty to controlling and coercive behaviour in November 2024. He was found to have been mentally, physically and emotionally abusive to a woman over a three-year period. In a statement, the woman said she had been affected so badly by his behaviour that she doubted she would “even be here today” without her family’s support.
Rees Newman avoided jail due to the prison overcrowding crisis in 2023, after receiving a two-year sentence for being convicted of the historic rape of a child under the age of 14. Just months after a judge agreed to suspend his sentence for two years, Newman breached the terms of his sentence by flying to Egypt without notifying officers. Despite being hauled back in front of the court, he avoided jail for the second time. The judge said: “The only reason you have escaped immediate custody today is because of the prison overcrowding crisis”
Mansoor Khan was found to have more than 100 “abhorrent and perverted” images of children on his phone. The former top NHS consultant and father of four was considered a “pillar of society” before the vile pictures were discovered. However, he managed to avoid jail at his sentencing in 2023, with his eight-month sentence being suspended for two years.
Charles Cannon was convicted of seven charges of possessing terrorist information but was sentenced to just 18 months in prison, suspended for two years, in February 2024. He was described as having “a dangerous mindset”, collected documents on how to make homemade explosives and weapons, and he spoke “enthusiastically of the stabbing of asylum seekers”. A guide to making explosives was found on his mobile phone.
He also called the decision to throw the bid out “shocking and unfair” and claimed his wife was the victim of “two-tier justice”.
Ray, a Tory on Northampton Town Council said she had coped “relatively well” with jail, adding: “The only person who hasn’t is our daughter.”
“It will be good to have her home. We are thankful for the support.
“Our focus will be to try to sort out our lives and for my wife to reconnect with our daughter.”
Tory councillor Ray added sarcastically: “Well done to Starmer for making it so difficult for a girl of 12. Let’s all give him a pat on the back.”
He said the family were delighted Lucy was coming home after more than a year and thanked the public for their support.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has faced accusations of hypocrisy for defending Connolly’s “harsh” sentencing, after he himself previously suggested those who quickly deleted offensive social media statements should not necessarily face criminal action.
Connolly’s post was viewed 310,000 times in the three-and-a-half hours before she deleted it.
While serving as director of public prosecutions, Starmer introduced guidance for prosecutors to consider a more lenient approach towards suspects who “swiftly” deleted social media posts and expressed “genuine remorse”.
The guidance urged prosecutors to consider four factors where “a prosecution is unlikely to be both necessary and proportionate”.
These included if “swift and effective action has been taken by the suspect and/or others, for example service providers, to remove the communication in question or otherwise block access to it”.
It also urged prosecutors to look at whether the communication was “intended for a wide audience” and if this audience “included the victim or target of the communication in question”.
In June, Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice claimed Connolly was being “mistreated” in prison.
He said she had been handcuffed and stripped of her privileges by prison officers after visiting her at HMP Peterborough.
Saying she was being “manhandled without provocation”, he told The Sun: “Lucy has bruises on her wrists, five days on from being violently manhandled by a group of aggressive guards who forced her into a wing riddled with drugs and violent women.
Shutterstock EditorialProtesters outside the court to support Lucy[/caption]
Gary StoneTory MP wife Lucy Connolly being driven away in a taxi after her release from Peterborough prison[/caption]
PAFormer Conservative councillor Raymond Connolly[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
