Not long ago, Lucy Connolly found herself being manhandled by up to six prison officers on the wing of HMP Peterborough that has been her home in recent months.
Roughly handcuffed, she was bundled to another wing housing violent inmates and treated so forcefully that she was left in agony. Several days later, her wrists were still bruised.
Lucy’s ‘crime‘? On this occasion it was to object to being moved to a new cell in an area of the prison known as ‘The Bronx’, so called because it houses the most troublesome inmates – the violent, aggressive and difficult ones.
Lucy Connolly, a childminder, had been none of these things during her months behind bars. Or indeed in civilian life.
But then as we now know, this was not the first time that vastly disproportionate measures were alleged to have been taken against the 42-year-old wife and mother, who found herself placed at His Majesty’s Pleasure last October.
Faced with a 31-month stretch for posting a deeply unpleasant tweet, which she quickly regretted and deleted, Lucy’s incarceration finally came to an end yesterday after nine agonising months behind bars.
But as the MP and deputy Reform leader Richard Tice, who recently visited Connolly in prison, told the Daily Mail, she faces further challenging times ahead as she readjusts to life on the outside.
‘I know that her main priority will be spending time with her family – that has kept her going. But at the same time her freedom will be a significant readjustment, not in the least because the things that are meant to help prisoners with that adjustment, such as day release, were denied to her,’ he says.
Faced with a 31-month stretch for posting a deeply unpleasant tweet, which she quickly regretted and deleted, Lucy Connolly’s (pictured) incarceration finally came to an end yesterday
Legal bills and the loss of Lucy’s childminding income have left her husband Ray (pictured), a former Conservative councillor, in thousands of pounds of debt
Pictured: Members of the Free Speech Union and supporters outside the Royal Courts of Justice ahead of Lucy Connolly’s appeal
‘It is wonderful news that she is no longer behind bars, but the horrendous trauma that has been inflicted on the whole family will take time to heal.’
Indeed. Legal bills and the loss of Lucy’s childminding income have left her husband Ray, a former Conservative councillor, in thousands of pounds of debt, while their 13-year-old daughter Holly has struggled so much with her mother’s absence and the dreadful, public circumstances behind it, that this previously bright and diligent schoolgirl has been suspended from school more than once in recent months.
She has recently been living with her grandmother, Lucy’s mum Heather, and other female relatives, as the family attempted to generate extra female support.
‘I don’t think you have to think about what happened to Lucy for very long to know that what happened has been incredibly hard for everyone,’ says Richard Tice.
Hard, and arguably deeply unfair.
Today, so infamous is her name that the circumstances behind Lucy Connolly’s incarceration barely need rehearsing.
In the hours after killer Axel Rudakubana murdered three young girls and attempted to murder ten others at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on July 29, 2024 – sparking nationwide unrest – Lucy posted a tweet in which she called for mass deportation of migrants and wrote that people could ‘set fire’ to hotels housing the ‘b***ards’ for all she cared.
She deleted the tweet within hours, but sensed something was afoot after receiving a torrent of messages referring to what she had written.
Her husband later revealed that she had said the tweet had ‘come back to haunt me’.
Yet neither could surely imagine to what extent: arrested at home by uniformed police officers on August 6, she was charged with inciting racial hatred and was handed a 31-month sentence in October after pleading guilty to the offence at Birmingham Crown Court. What has been less well documented is how Lucy and her family have navigated her time behind bars.
Faced with a 31-month stretch for posting a deeply unpleasant tweet, which she quickly regretted and deleted, Lucy’s incarceration finally came to an end yesterday after nine agonising months behind bars. Pictured: Lucy and Ray Connolly
Pictured: The first picture of Lucy Connolly following her release from prison show her walking the dogs in the evening sunshine
Although when the Mail visited the pleasant semi-detached family home in Northamptonshire yesterday, ahead of Lucy’s release, Ray told us his wife had coped with imprisonment ‘relatively well’, in truth the whole family have endured months of emotional turmoil, particularly their daughter Holly.
Twelve when her mum was arrested – she had to celebrate her 13th birthday without her – she has missed her terribly. ‘She has found it very difficult not having her mum at home,’ as Ray put it yesterday.
Her mother, in turn, has had to navigate all manner of emotional onslaughts throughout the course of her imprisonment, not in the least the hammer blow of her appeal being overturned in May, along with countless rejected requests for day release – something to which she has been entitled since last November, but which have never been granted.
But then as we shall see, Lucy’s time in prison seems to have been characterised by obfuscation, double standards and, on occasion, downright lies.
Initially sent on remand to HMP Peterborough, a fragile and frightened Lucy arrived in prison with a ‘reputation’ already formed, said her husband. A couple of the officers subsequently told her that they’d been warned by the authorities to ‘watch out’ for her because she could be violent.
Lucy had to inform them she had never had a fight in her life.
She had only just settled into Peterborough when she was transferred to Drake Hall in Staffordshire, increasing the time it took for visitors to make the trip from her home town in Northampton from two hours to three.
Nonetheless, nearly every Sunday – family day in the prison calendar – Ray and Holly would dutifully make the trip, alongside other relatives and family friends.
Pictured: After an afternoon catching up with friends and family members, Lucy went on a long walk around local fields before returning to the detached property, on a quiet cul-de-sac
Pictured: Riot police holding back protesters near a burning police vehicle after disorder breaks out in Southport on July 30, 2024
Notably, also among her visitors, the Mail understands, were the parents of children in Lucy’s care – past and present – some of whom were from immigrant backgrounds and many of whom wrote character references to the sentencing judge pleading for leniency.
Even with the unwavering love from her family however – and the groundswell of support from many members of the public – one can only imagine how desperately frightened this previously law-abiding citizen must have been in those early days, mingling with drug dealers, thieves and murderers.
One anonymous officer at Peterborough reported that he had never seen anyone look so petrified on arrival.
In fact, despite her own and her family’s fears, Lucy settled into prison life reasonably well.
After initial suspicion about her perceived ‘poshness’ and marriage to a Conservative councillor, Lucy became something of a mother figure to many of the damaged women she was housed alongside.
Many would sit in her cell for hours, chatting and putting the world to rights, while Ray subsequently revealed that his wife had asked him to send extra money to give to some of the needier inmates, many of whom were homeless.
‘Lucy got on great with some of the most difficult prisoners,’ he told one journalist.
‘There was this strong, scary, very attractive, powerful Jamaican girl and she was really kicking off with the prison officers, and they didn’t know what to do, and Lucy went over, sort of grabbed her and gave her a big cuddle. The officers said, ‘”What’s wrong with her?”, and Lucy said, “She wants her mum”.’
Tellingly, when other inmates asked Lucy what she was in for, her response that it was a post on social media bamboozled them.
‘They cracked up, is the correct reaction, I think,’ Ray revealed.
Even so, Lucy has undeniably been through difficult times while inside, not least because despite repeated requests and well-argued letters to the governor, prison authorities repeatedly denied her temporary leave – known as ROTL, or Release on Temporary Licence.
Among the reasons cited for depriving her of the chance to enjoy normal conditions leading up to release was ‘media interest’.
Pictured: The Tory councillor watering flowers in preparation for his wife’s release from prison
Pictured: A couple of hours after her release husband Ray Connolly left the house with a set of golf clubs
Desperate for answers, when her mother Heather asked the Home Office why her daughter wasn’t getting the leave to which she was entitled, the reply came back that she ‘hadn’t been assessed yet’.
The most brutal setback came in May, however, when the Court of Appeal overturned her request to shorten her sentence. The decision, said Ray, left her ‘heartbroken’.
Holly was also devastated: having excitedly prepared for her mother’s early return, she was told instead she would have to wait another three months.
‘We’re a good little team but this has knocked my daughter a little bit. She’s got bad anxiety,’ Ray told Talk television in the aftermath of the news.
By June, at least, Lucy had been moved closer to home, having been moved back to HMP Peterborough.
She was placed on the induction unit until a space became available on the enhanced wing where, as a prisoner of good character, she would receive better accommodation and her own television.
Which brings us to what Richard Tice calls the ‘shocking assault’ on Lucy just over two months ago.
Having been led to believe a room had become free on the enhanced wing, Lucy was instead told by an officer that she was being placed on A1, a wing known as ‘The Bronx’ due to its frequent chaotic scenes.
After politely telling officers she would not go, she says she was subsequently set upon by a group or five or six officers using restraining methods that are meant to be reserved for violent or abusive prisoners.
The mother (pictured) has spent more than nine months behind bars after admitting to making the inflammatory post on X in July last year
Pictured: Ray Connolly (centre) with supporters outside the Court of Appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London in May
She was bent forwards, her arms bent sharply back, and her hands tightly handcuffed, leaving her in what she later described to Ray as ‘excruciating pain,’ before being manhandled up three flights of stairs and dumped in a filthy cell.
She was then told she was on 23 hour lockdown for 14 days on what is known as ‘Basics’ – meaning no TV, no privilege, and food being brought to her cell.
Richard Tice visited Lucy in the wake of this experience, and said he was deeply impressed by her forbearance.
‘I saw Lucy in the wake of what had been fundamentally a shocking assault undertaken on her by prison officers who were clearly playing games with her,’ he said.
‘She was coping not only with this, but with adapting to prison life, also to the news of her appeal being rejected, but she did so with enormous equanimity although she was clearly very upset.’
Having complained to the prison about her treatment and requested an investigation, Richard says he has been met with silence.
‘They did not give me the courtesy of a reply which I am hugely disappointed by; I wonder if that means they cleared the officers involved of any wrongdoing,’ he told the Mail.
Meanwhile life on the outside has not been easy for Ray.
As well as trying to parent a daughter experiencing all the trials and tribulations of adolescence without a guiding maternal hand, he has also had to navigate a number of personal brickbats of his own.
A hugely popular Conservative councillor at West Northamptonshire Council, his public loyalty to his wife – he appeared on television saying she was a ‘good person and not a racist’ – led to 13 anonymous complaints about his ‘behaviour’ to the council which were referred to a London law firm to investigate.
The Labour MP for Northampton South Mike Reader also called for his resignation in a statement referring to ‘high standards in public discourse’.
‘As [councillor] Connolly repeatedly defended the comments made, I hope he will now do the right thing and resign from West Northamptonshire Council,’ Mr Reader said.
In the event Ray Connolly did not resign, although he went on to lose his seat following elections in May. He remains on the town council. Arguably, he has more to worry about than his career: alongside his own health issues – he has a compromised immune system because of bone marrow issues – the family have faced enormous financial problems.
Earlier this year Ray was forced to sell the family car, alongside other possessions, to pay his wife’s legal fees, and at one point was facing the prospect of losing the family home.
His circumstances have been eased by the creation of a JustGiving page – set up by supporters – which to date has raised nearly £160,000.
The Mail understands that Ray has received £60,000 of this so far to help settle his debts.
Let us not forget either that both Ray and Lucy continue to endure the almost unfathomable loss of a child, after their toddler son Harry died in 2011 as a result of gross medical negligence.
It says much about the strain Lucy’s imprisonment has placed him under that two months ago, in the wake of his wife’s move to ‘The Bronx’, Ray was reduced to tears for the first time since Harry’s death.
Unable to cry since the loss, he confided to friends that he had wept after hearing Lucy sobbing uncontrollably down the phone.
Finally husband, wife and daughter are now reunited under one roof for the first time in nine months. When asked about their plans yesterday, Ray responded only that their focus was ‘to get our lives back on track’.
