Jailed wife of ex-Tory councillor who posted 'set fire' to migrant hotels after the Southport murders could be freed within weeks
The wife of a former Conservative councillor who tweeted 'burn down hotels' following the Southport murders could be released from jail within weeks.
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Connolly, who is married to former West Northamptonshire councillor Raymond Connolly, was sentenced to 31 months in prison at Birmingham Crown Court in October, having pleaded guilty to inciting racial hatred.
Sources have told The Standard that Connolly is due to be released from HMP Peterborough next month subject to conditions.
She took to X to call for 'mass deportations' and urged people to set fire to all the hotels as riots were sweeping across the country in the aftermath of the murder of three girls in Southport.
She wrote: "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 post was viewed more than 300,000 times in three and a half hours before she deleted it.
Read more: Should Lucy Connolly be let out of prison early? LBC callers deliver their verdict
The court heard that she had posted another tweet commenting on a sword attack, which read: "I bet my house it was one of these boat invaders."
Her sentence has drawn criticism from several high-profile figures, including the White House and former PM Liz Truss, who say that it is 'completely unjustifiable' and referred to her as the victim of "a politicised two-tier justice system."
A White House spokesperson said that they are monitoring the case.
She lost an appeal to reduce her sentence in May which meant she had to wait until the summer to be released - at which point she would have served 40 per cent of her sentence.
Connolly told the Court of Appeal that she had "never" intended to incite violence and hadn't realised that pleading guilty would mean she accepted that she had.