Lucy Connolly has been told she will have to wait to hear the outcome her appeal against her 31-month prison sentence after tweeting ‘set fire to all the f****** hotels’ during last year’s riots
The wife of a former Conservative county councillor who was jailed after an online rant about migrants on the day of the Southport attacks will have to wait to see if her appeal has been successful.
The Court of Appeal heard yesterday that Lucy Connolly “never” intended to incite violence and is challenging the sentence of 31 months imprisonment that she was given last October after admitting making the post on X, formerly known as Twitter. The post, which she later deleted, said: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the b******* for all I care… if that makes me racist so be it.” It came after three girls were stabbed and killed at a holiday club in Southport on the same date, sparking nationwide unrest.
Yesterday Lord Justice Holroyde, Mr Justice Goss and Mr Justice Sheldon heard that she had not intended the post to incite violence.
Judes will now retire to consider the appeal and deliver their judgement in writing. After the hearing former Tory councillor Ray Connolly, husband of Lucy Connolly said he hopes his wife will return home within a week.
Speaking outside the Royal Courts of Justice, he said: “Obviously I’m disappointed today. It didn’t come to a conclusion and get a result. It’s 279 days now my daughter’s been without her mother. I’m hoping that within a week she’ll be home and this will come to a positive conclusion. Can’t really say no more than that.
“It’s a shame I didn’t get a result today but we’ll soon know in the next few days. Got to get home now to my daughter.”
During the hearing, giving evidence from HMP Drake Hall in Eccleshall in Staffordshire, Connolly said that when she initially wrote the post on July 29 she was “really angry, really upset” and “distressed that those children had died” and that she knew how the parents felt.
She said: “Those parents still have to live a life of grief. It sends me into a state of anxiety and I worry about my children.”
The court heard that Connolly’s son died tragically around 14 years ago, and that news of the murders of the children in Southport had caused a resurgence of her anxiety around this. Adam King, representing Connolly, asked if she had intended for anyone to set fire to asylum hotels, or “murder any politicians”.
She replied: “Absolutely not.” When asked why she had deleted the post three and a half hours after posting it, Connolly added: “I calmed myself down, and I know that wasn’t an acceptable thing to say.
“It wasn’t the right thing to say, it wasn’t what I wanted to happen.” The court heard that some days later Connolly posted an apology on X stating that she regretted her initial post and now realised that it was wrong in “every way”.
When asked why she apologised, Connolly said it was because she was “really upset” her husband had been brought into it, and he did not deserve his name being “dragged through the mud”. Connolly told the court that during discussions with her barrister at the crown court, Liam Muir, she did not understand that by pleading guilty she was accepting that she intended to incite violence.
She said: “When I wrote that tweet there had been no violence and it was never my intention to cause any.” Connolly, of Northampton, 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 former childminder, who is married to Raymond Connolly, was sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court last October after pleading guilty to a charge of inciting racial hatred.
Mr Connolly had been a Tory West Northamptonshire county councillor, but lost his seat in May. He remains on the town council.
