Lucy Connolly Loses Appeal for Early Release From 31-Month Sentence for Southport Tweet
Lucy Connolly, who was jailed for 31 months for a tweet posted in the wake of the Southport murders, has failed in her attempt to be released early after the Court of Appeal refused to reduce her sentence. She now faces another two years behind bars and away from her young daughter and husband. The Telegraph has more.
Lucy Connolly, a former childminder and the wife of a Conservative councillor, was jailed in October after pleading guilty to a charge of inciting racial hatred.
Last week, the 42 year-old went to the Court of Appeal in an attempt to challenge the length of the original prison term.
Her lawyers argued Connolly had not fully understood what she was pleading guilty to, and also that the original judge had failed to give enough weight to various mitigating factors, including the welfare of her 12 year-old daughter.
But in a ruling handed down on Tuesday morning, three appeal judges rejected the application, meaning she will now not be released before August.
The judgment was handed down just moments after far-Right activist Tommy Robinson had his 18-month sentence for contempt of court reduced by four months at the High Court.
Her husband Ray said: “I am heartbroken that my wife Lucy’s appeal was not upheld by the Court of Appeal. It feels shocking and unfair. The 284 days of separation have been very hard, particularly on our 12-year-old girl.
“Lucy posted one nasty tweet when she was upset and angry about three little girls who were brutally murdered in Southport.
“She realised the tweet was wrong and deleted it within four hours. That did not mean Lucy was a ‘far-Right thug’ as Prime Minister Keir Starmer claimed.
“My wife Lucy is a good person and not a racist. As a childminder she took care of small children of African and Asian heritage; they loved Lucy as she loved them.
“My wife has paid a very high price for making a mistake and today the court has shown her no mercy.
“Lucy got more time in jail for one tweet than some paedophiles and domestic abusers get. I think the system wanted to make an example of Lucy so other people would be scared to say things about immigration. This is not the British way.
“Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood says she will release 40,000 prisoners, some of them dangerous men on tag.
“Lucy has not been allowed out on tag and she has been denied leave to see our child who is struggling.
“Today, the court had the opportunity to reduce her cruelly long and disproportionate sentence, but they refused. That feels like two-tier justice.
“We will continue to pursue every possible avenue to seek justice and to bring Lucy home to us,” he added.
Worth reading in full.
The Mail‘s report quotes the FSU and Toby:
A statement on X by the Free Speech Union (FSU), which had funded Connolly’s appeal bid, said: “This is a deeply disappointing judgment.
“No one disputes the tweet was offensive but the sentence of more than two-and-a-half years was plainly disproportionate.”
It continued: “Two-and-a-half years for a single tweet is grossly disproportionate and it should trouble anyone who believes the law must be applied evenly, without fear or favour.”
Lord Toby Young, the General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, added: “This is terribly disappointing. How can it be right for Lucy to have been condemned to spend more than two-and-a-half years in jail for a single tweet when members of grooming gangs who plead guilty to the sexual exploitation of children get lower sentences?
“Lucy should be at home with her 12 year-old daughter and husband, not rotting in jail.”
In a written judgment, Lord Justice Holroyde, said: “There is no arguable basis on which it could be said that the sentence imposed by the judge was manifestly excessive.
“The application for leave to appeal against sentence therefore fails and is refused.”
He added that the principal ground of appeal “was substantially based on a version of events put forward by the applicant which we have rejected”.
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The two “judgments” were handed down WITHIN MINUTES of each other, showing the blatant CRIMINAL COLLUSION between the judges and the government, thereby removing all doubt as to the “independent” administration of justice in the UK.
None of them can criticize Putin for what he did to Russian Patriot Navalny, when they are doing the same to British Patriots.
An open trade-off of hostages, like the Mafia.
Don’t they send their captives back bit at a time?
I shouldn’t give the courts ideas…
Or in a body bag, like Peter Lynch.
I wonder if Lineker will now be prosecuted for a hate crime due to his now deleted tweet. I won’t hold my breath!
Disgusting blatant two-tier injustice.
The lesson often repeated, but rarely learned, is that the Globalists love to make people issue grovelling apologies full of remorse, as a kind of ritual humiliation, and then crush them anyway.
It’s factually wrong to assert that the tweet quoted by the mail contains an incitement to violence or racial hatred as illegal immigrant is not a race and a statement that someone wouldn’t mind if a hotel filled with illegal immigrants burnt down in no way asks for such hotels to be burnt down. It just states that the author of the tweet would be indifferent to that.
Considering this, what Holroyde and his colleagues rejected is not some version of anything but simply reality. Starmer asked for people to be jailed to make political examples of them. And so, the judicative did jail people in order to make political example of them with preciously little regard for what these people actually did. Or put in in another way: The government wanted to jail far-right thugs. But as there weren’t any, random people from the street who had posted something online which could somehow be made to fit were jailed instead.
Excellent points.
Then we have no fair and honest judicial system, that like so much else has turned to dust….
So had Lucy pleaded ‘not guilty’, although she’d likely have waited months to go to trial it would’ve been with a jury present, presumably. Therefore, one would assume, it would be very unlikely they’d have passed a ‘guilty’ verdict. So theoretically Lucy would be a free woman now in that scenario? Is this how it works? I’m also wondering how many other patriot ‘meme terrorists’ or non-violent protest-attendees have appealed and if any of them are having better luck. If not, it seems pretty obvious that this was all done by design, from start to finish: put the frighteners on them to get them to plead ‘guilty’, deny any appeals or home visits, they must serve their full sentences.
But as nobody seems to be reporting on the situation with any of the others that were jailed we’re all completely in the dark as to how they’re bearing up or if they’re having more success than Lucy is.
Good point about tracking the progress of other ‘offenders’.
I’m slightly confused or perhaps ignorant. Was Lucy Connolly originally sentenced to 31 months or was the sentence longer and the release after completing (say) 50% of the sentence was calculated as 31 months?
I’m aware that in many cases a sentence of (say) 5 years will be actually 2.5 years in jail followed by the rest on ‘supervised’ probation.
I understand the current arrangements are 40% in jail and the rest on probation. 40% of 31 months is 12.4 months. Is she actually expected to be released after 12.4 months or after 31 months?
Yes, I’m also confused and thought the standard now was to serve 40% of your sentence in jail, but Will has wrote in the intro that she’s to spend ”another two years behind bars”, which wasn’t really clear or specified by the excerpts above. So when is she actually due to be released?
Well, no I think white people have to do their full whack.
Also important: This is essentially members from the university educated classes jailing people with less formal education for being somewhat careless in their use of emotive language. Connolly has been found guilty of really improper use of language by people belonging to an entirely different stratum of society. The verdict she received is really something like You’re guilty of not being one of us!
A jury of her peers would likely have found differently. That’s why her trial was engineered to avoid that.
Yes I find it beyond comprehension that one can get jailed for ‘inappropriate’ memes or mean tweets ( or even just the one, which you later delete ) but be found with 2,000 child sex abuse images on your phone and you’ll never see the inside of a cell. Lucy et al’s alleged ‘crime’ had no victims, the same cannot be said for those supporting the demand for child sex abuse by downloading this filth. Where is the proportionality? Unless the courts think sticking these perverts on a sex offenders register is punishment enough and even worse than banging them up. This is certainly the message they’re sending to the public, so not a lot of deterrent for these twisted sickos there, is there?
I don’t think it’s sensible to go down that route. Punishment for offences is spelled out the the applicable laws. Someone may find it revolting that incitement to racial hatred may be punished more severly than possession of illegal child porn but if that’s the case, the applicable laws must be changed and that’s not the business of the judiciary.
Connolly pleaded guilty under duress despite being innocent. Weighing one’s words less carefully than someone who studied jurisprudence certainly shouldn’t be a crime as that’s what the majority of the population is wont to do.
Rupert Lowe knows the score;
”When we’re releasing violent criminals and paedophiles are walking free, how on earth can a prison space be justified on a young mother who posted one stupid comment, then rapidly deleted it?
Not just her, but others too…
It is PURE insanity – an evil misuse of prison.
I have written to the Secretary of State for Justice about Lucy Connolly.
I will share any response I receive.”
https://x.com/RupertLowe10/status/1924811474431521177
One slight correction required by Rupert – Lucy Connolly expressed a point of view which was NOT a “stupid comment.” That’s the problem here, too many are acceding to the notion that she was at fault. She wasn’t.
You really have made the most important point about all of this, which few others have recognized before, including myself.
Lucy was expressing her natural anger at horrific events, and had every right to do so. Freedom of Speech & Thought cannot be legislated out of existence.
The end of the tweet was:’for all I care’. That softens it considerably.
I note the BBC cut that bit out in its report.
Compare and contrast the harsh justice of 1850, when a relative of mine died after a scuffle in a pub in Stourbridge which broke his neck in a fall.
The perpetrator was tried in Crown Court (his Lordship v a mere ostler), and found guilty of manslaughter, but the jury recommended leniency. The judge agreed, giving him a fortnight in gaol in addition to the couple of months he’d already served on remand. The judge considered the regret the accused must feel as a severe enough punishment in itself.
Presumably there was no quango to set punishment guidelines in those days, so the judges were left to their arbitrary common sense.
Totalitarian state.
Every time any appeal for right or reason (or in this case mercy) to prevail, the arrogant response, we’re right because we say we are, proves your point.
Only what to expect from judges under Kneel.
Blimey, another one! I just shared an article earlier about a Muslim woman becoming the new Mayor of Rotherham, here’s another ‘hijabi’ appointed new Mayor of Sheffield;
”The new Lord Mayor of Sheffield has made history as the first black woman wearing a hijab to be appointed to the role.
Labour’s Safiya Saeed was inaugurated as the city’s 128th Lord Mayor at a council meeting on Monday.
Members of her family travelled from her home country of Somaliland for the ceremony at Sheffield Town Hall.
Saeed said: “I am honoured to be the first black woman wearing a hijab to take this role. I came to Sheffield in 1985, and this city has truly become my home, a place where I have always felt I belong.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2q5v2x30ro
She doesn’t belong.
“…woman wearing a hijab to…a place where I have always felt I belong.”
Do all the women in Sheffield wear a hijab then?
I see it’s another Labour council 🤔 No surprise there…
Bad news day. Lucy Connelly and finding out a company called Competitive Power Ventures is trying to sneak a windfarm 40 miles from where I live with wind turbines almost 700 feet sitting atop a razed mountain top just causes the blood to boil.
Meanwhile, Ricky Jones who pleaded not guilty for clear incitement to violence is still due to stand trial…
Well done for pointing that out, because the apparently Ethnic African Jones has been free on bail for making Death Threats all the while that Lucy and Tommy and hundreds of other Patriots have been suffering imprisonment, refused bail for months to force them to plead “guilty”.
Trial of suspended Labour councillor Ricky Jones over riots speech delayed until August
The BBC says (Woman jailed for race hate post on X loses appeal):
She did not – ‘for all I care‘ is the important qualifier.
If only BBC had a group which could verify what a would-be journo like Martin Heath writes. Perhaps we should follow Mr Heath’s progress in the business; I’m sure he’ll go far.
I’ve registered a complaint with the BBC for that and urge anybody else to do the same. Journalists working for a supposedly impartal news organization certainly should fabricate politically convenient statements by selective quoting and outright fabrications. Connolly’s tweet didn’t address anyone and hence, she obviously wasn’t urging anyone to do anything, either.
Do you happen to have access to the actual words she used? I can’t find them.
From the article in Independent (not my ***):
Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the b******* for all I care, while you’re at it take the treacherous government and politicians with them.
I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist so be it.
Thanks
The Mail quotes her (twice) as follows:
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.’
And that’s also the statement which got published at the time this happened. Which means not the “extended” version published in the Independent which has a rather different tone and indeed addresses someone, presumably, the rioters everyone was talking about, directly. The additional half-sentence about politicians and government doesn’t really seem to fit with the remaining statement and seems seriously odd for someone whose husband is a Tory councillor. I’m, therefore, strongly inclined to believe that the version in the Mail is correct and that the Independent is trying to pull a BBC here as it certainly doesn’t have access to the original tweet.
The Mail abridged the quote in the text and published a screenshot with the version which is also in the Indy. I still don’t see any incitement to racial hatred in there, though.
Indeed. In my complaint to the BBC I asked them among other things why they did not simply quote the original words verbatim and let their readers make up their own minds.
https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2024-08-07/childminder-and-wife-of-tory-councillor-arrested-for-inciting-racial-hatred
There’s a screenshot of the tweet – or whatever the dratted things are called – in the above news article. It is as AbsolutelyNot wrote earlier.
Thanks
I have complained. I think it’s good to let them know we are watching.
The real problem with two tier justice is that some are punished harshly while other scallawags don’t learn the consequences of their actions.
There’s a double damage: those that get lenient punishments will most probably do it again, while the other side is even more enraged.
Recipe for disaster.
Just for some comparison, but also proof that two-tier justice is the new norm, and that judges clearly favour illegal Islamist migrants over law-abiding patriots. Evidently when it’s Jews at the receiving end of hate speech it’s all good. Check out his crime and sentence compared with Lucy’s sick joke of a situation; ”Abu Wadee, 33, also known as Mosab Abdulkarim Al-Gassas, pleaded guilty on Monday to trying to get into the country on March 6 without leave or valid entry clearance. He has been jailed at Canterbury Crown Court for nine months. He was arrested by immigration enforcement officers after arriving on a small boat in Kent, having paid smugglers 1,500 euros (£1,300), Canterbury Crown Court previously heard. Wadee was then placed in a hotel in the Manchester area. The court had heard that Wadee, who left Gaza in 2022 before making asylum claims in Greece, Germany and Belgium, had no familial or financial ties to the UK and had stayed between Calais and Dunkirk in France for about seven days before making the crossing. His arrival in the UK made national headlines after it was reported that Wadee had posted on social media support for terror group Hamas,… Read more »
So, the headline says ‘alleged’ but the body of the report says
it was reported that Wadee had posted on social media support for terror group Hamas
How is that only an ‘allegation’?
So this double-named entity who is an ‘irregular’ immigrant will be fed and housed by the British taxpayers – albeit in prison – for a few months, then what? Will he be booted out of the country? Surely he should be deported back to Gaza now to serve time in a prison there! Hang on, I suspect it will be against his human rights!
It is manifestly unfair to imprisonna lady for a tweet when actual harm to others goes unpunished or hardly punished at all. Including actual violence against people and property.
The judge’s remarks when sentencing Lucy should be damaging enough to him for his positioin to be reconsideredn He called her a racist and mantioned events which took place long after her alleged offence.
I hope Reform’s manifesto will include procedures to review judges’ appointments.
This Holroyde cretin honestly thinks that the judgement and sentence given is fair and honest? Not surprised, not anymore, by anything….
Un-phuquing- believeable. The UK has fallen.
Only option now is to legally p*** off the judicial system.
Can we hire a Lambhorgini (or however the hell you spell it) to collect her when she is released in August?
Shouldn’t only be for drug dealers.
Jeremy Clarkson would call it a Lambo to avoid the issue of spelling…
Judiciary and legal professionals protecting their own from humiliation and charges of professional negligence.
“Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?” Answer: Two tier Keir.
Scandalous.
For shame.
Truly 2 tier justice at work.
Absolutely sickening, but the further damage this will do to the filth in the HoP almost seems like a silver lining.
They know they’re done and are now trying to inflict as much damage and insult as they can while possible.
Get used to it baby. That is what the British state does. They are close to the grave but they aren’t dead yet.
It really does seem as though Heroic Jewish Canadian PhD Henry Makow was actually right when he said, as he’s been saying for years, that:
“The world has been taken over by a Satanic Cult”.
Satanism is a thriving philosophy with many important followers. Anyone who doesn’t see this, doesn’t want to for fear of being mocked. The concept of belief in worshipping Lucifer is irrelevant. The fact that so many people have begun to do so is not.
She’s Two-Tier’s Poster Child to warn the white working class that they shouldn’t have any right wing opinions; they hadn’t better dare voice them and if they are attacked by any of the evil “minorities” the Establishment has shipped in, they hadn’t better complaint.
She’s effectively a political prisoner and a hostage. And he’s not giving her up.
What’s “right-wing” about actually applying existing law instead of circumventing it at an astronomical cost?
The corruption of the judiciary knows no bounds. These people are not fit for purpose. Vile and spiteful are words that spring to mind.
That’s especially evident in the rejection of the argument that she didn’t really understand what she was pleading guily to because her lawyer hadn’t explained it sufficiently: The judge finds that
he was ‘a conscientious defence lawyer with a clear grasp of the relevant law, practice and procedure and a realistic appraisal of the issues in the case’.
This doesn’t address the supposed issue at all, it just asserts the she had a lawyer the judge really believed to be competent of giving proper advice. But nobody ever questioned its competence for giving advice, the issue was with the advice he gave. The statement is basically “He’s a good, hard-working guy and you’re a bad, racist woman! Now, back to your cell!”