A Tory councillor’s wife who was jailed after calling for migrant hotels to be set alight dubbed herself ‘Keir Starmer’s political prisoner’ and revealed she will be meeting with the Trump administration tomorrow.
Lucy Connolly,42,gave an interview to sacked GB News Dan Wootton presenter on his Youtube channel for this first time after leaving HMP Peterborough yesterday.
The childminder pleaded guilty to inciting racial hatred after posting a hate-tweet on X on the day of the Southport attacks in August 2024,but served less than half her sentence.
Her post,which was viewed more than 300,000 times in the four hours before she deleted it,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.’
Lucy Connolly,a childminder from Northampton,pictured with husband Ray (Picture: SWNS)
Lucy Connolly left HMP Peterborough in a white taxi (Picture: Sam Russell/PA Wire)The post was prompted by false rumours which circulated on social media following the murder of three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class,which suggested the attacker was an illegal immigrant.In her interview today,the former childminder revealed she would be meeting with Trump officials who were ‘watching the case carefully’.Claiming there are still ‘other political prisoners’,she called on the prime minister to show what keeping them locked up was achieving,accusing the government of communism.She said: ‘Communist Britain,this is what communism is. And this is why I’ll never agree with socialism and Labour,is because it shouldn’t be,just because you can’t have it no one else can.’Connolly also said to the Telegraph she will be ‘looking into’ taking legal action against the police,and accused officers and Crown Prosecution Service of ‘twisting her words’ during her interview following her arrest.‘I will be releasing the interview so people can see for themselves. I said if there was one immigrant in asylum hotels that wants to hurt our children,that is one too many,’ she said.‘They then said I didn’t like immigrants and they are a danger to our children.’The CPS said following her guilty plea in September: ‘During police interview Lucy Connolly stated she had strong views on immigration,told officers she did not like immigrants and claimed that children were not safe from them.’Connolly added she should have ‘never have posted the tweet’,but defended it saying it was ‘an emotional outburst’.She said: ‘It was just an emotional outburst,it was a flippant,unnecessary comment.‘At the time I was so emotional,so distraught. It was out of pure rage.’
(L-R) Bebe King,Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice da Silva Aguiar were killed in the Southport attack (Picture: Merseyside Police/PA Wire)She described the moment the police turned up at her home,saying she ‘didn’t think for one minute they would actually arrest her’.‘I was panicking,this is not my world,’ she said. ‘More police were turning up,I rang my solicitor from jail,and she told me that I was able to explain myself “eloquently”.’Connolly,who is married to West Northamptonshire councillor Raymond Connolly,was sentenced to 31 months in prison last October.In May,she lost an appeal to reduce her sentence.The mum was released on license after serving 40% of her sentence and left in a white privatehire car.The childminder’s social media post was uploaded hours after Alice da Silva Aguiar,nine, Bebe King,six,and Elsie Dot Stancombe,seven,were all killed by Axel Rudakubana,who was aged 17 at the time.The attack on the class injured eight other children and two adults.It triggered rioting across the country,leading to hundreds of prison sentences.Connolly’s imprisonment was highly controversial,with her supporters claiming she was made a scapegoat for last summer’s disorder and given an unfairly long jail term.
Lucy’s husband Ray said she ‘paid a very high price for making a mistake’ (Picture: X)Her husband Ray said she ‘paid a very high price for making a mistake’.After her release,Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called Connolly’s sentence ‘harsher than the sentences handed down for bricks thrown at police or actual rioting’.Prime Minister Keir Starmer has defended her conviction,saying he would ‘always support’ the UK’s justice system.He added: ‘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.’However Court of Appeal judges slapped down arguments to reduce her agreed her sentence in May.Dismissing her appeal,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.’
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