Lucy Connolly considers legal action against police after being jailed for race hate tweet
Lucy Connolly, who was jailed after calling for her followers on X to burn down asylum hotels with people inside them, has said she is considering legal action against the police after her release from prison.
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Connolly, 42, left HMP Peterborough on Thursday morning after spending more than 300 days behind bars.
She was handed a 31-month sentence after she posted on X: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the bastards for all I care … if that makes me racist so be it.”
Her tweet was posted after three young girls were murdered at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party, and false far-right conspiracy theories that the killer was an asylum seeker spread online.
She pleaded guilty to inciting racial hatred by publishing and distributing “threatening or abusive” written material on X and was jailed at Birmingham Crown Court in October last year.
The former childminder, from Northampton, was ordered to serve 40% of her sentence in prison before being released on licence.
Connolly said she felt police were “dishonest” and claimed her words were “massively twisted and used against me”.
Northamptonshire Police told LBC they are hoping to speak with Connolly soon regarding her allegations.
A spokesperson said: “We are aware of comments made by Lucy Connolly in an interview following her release from prison.
A press release from the CPS following her guilty plea on September 2 included a quote from Frank Ferguson, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Unit, which said: “During police interview Lucy Connolly stated she had strong views on immigration, told officers she did not like immigrants and claimed that children were not safe from them.”
Asked about possible legal action, Connolly told the Telegraph: “That’s something that I will be looking into. I don’t want to say too much because I need to seek legal advice on that, but 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.”
Connolly said she pleaded guilty to inciting racial hatred because she thought it would be the “quickest route home” from prison in time to spend Christmas with her daughter.
She told the Telegraph: “Because I’d been remanded, I didn’t know how long (I would be) waiting for a trial. The courts are so far behind. I’m not sure they would’ve been in any hurry to get my case to trial.
She also claimed she did not think she would get a fair trial following riots that were sparked by the Southport killings.
She said: “Even had I gone to trial, it was so prejudiced by that point, by the Government, by the police, by the press. I just, I don’t even think I would’ve had a fair trial because people have been told stuff already that actually wasn’t true.”
Reacting to her release, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Connolly’s sentence was “harsher than the sentences handed down for bricks thrown at police or actual rioting”.
In a post on X, Ms Badenoch compared Connolly’s case with that of Ricky Jones, a suspended Labour councillor who was found not guilty of encouraging violent disorder at an anti-racism rally in the wake of the Southport murders.
Writing on X, Mrs Badenoch said: “Juries are a cornerstone of justice, but we shouldn’t have to rely on them to protect basic freedoms.
“Protecting people from words should not be given greater weight in law than public safety. If the law does this, then the law itself is broken – and it’s time Parliament looked again at the Public Order Act.”
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage described Connolly’s case as a “symbol of Keir Starmer’s authoritarian, broken, two-tier Britain”.
A bid to challenge her sentence at the Court of Appeal was dismissed in May, which was described by Mr Connolly as “shocking and unfair”.
The Northampton town councillor, and former West Northamptonshire district councillor, said his wife had “paid a very high price for making a mistake”.
But Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer defended it earlier this year.
He was asked in May about Connolly’s case after her Court of Appeal application against her jail term was dismissed.
Asked during Prime Minister’s Questions whether her imprisonment was an “efficient or fair use” of prison, Sir Keir said: “Sentencing is a matter for our courts and I celebrate the fact that we have independent courts in this country.
“I am strongly in favour of free speech, we’ve had free speech in this country for a very long time and we protect it fiercely.
“But I am equally against incitement to violence against other people. I will always support the action taken by our police and courts to keep our streets and people safe.”
Connolly was arrested on August 6, by which point she had deleted her social media account, but other messages which included further racist remarks were uncovered by officers who seized her phone.
The post was viewed 310,000 times in three and a half hours before she deleted it.
"We hope to contact Mrs Connolly in the coming days to understand the issues she has raised around Northamptonshire Police.”
LBC has contacted the MoJ for comment