A TORY councillor’s wife who was jailed for posting a racist tweet after the Southport attack is set to be released from prison today.
Lucy Connolly was sentenced to 31 months in prison in October after being found guilty of inciting racial hatred after she made the post on X just hours following the murders in Southport.
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However, Connolly – wife of Conservative councillor Raymond Connolly – will be released from prison today after serving less than a year of her sentence, the Telegraph reported.
Posting on X the day three children were murdered by Axel Rudakubana in Southport, Connolly wrote: “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 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.
Critics have slammed her sentence in the past for being too harsh, although Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer earlier this year defended it.
When asked in May if Connolly’s imprisonment was an “efficient or fair use” of prison, after her Court of Appeal application against her jail term was dismissed, the PM 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’s post was viewed 310,000 times in three-and-a-half hours before she deleted it.
Lord Young of Acton, founder and director of the Free Speech Union, said: “The fact that Lucy Connolly has spent more than a year in prison for a single tweet that she quickly deleted and apologised for is a national scandal, particularly when Labour MPs, councillors and anti-racism campaigners who’ve said and done much worse have avoided jail.
“The same latitude they enjoyed should have been granted to Lucy.”
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