A childminder married to a Conservative councillor has been jailed for 31 months over an online post encouraging hotels housing asylum seekers to be set alight.
Lucy Connolly pleaded guilty to publishing a racist post on X on the day of the knife attack on a Southport dance class in which three children were killed, when false claims had spread on social media that the attacker was an illegal immigrant.
The post, which she later deleted, read: ‘Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f***ing hotels full of the b******s for all I care…’
The 41-year-old added: ‘If that makes me racist, so be it.’
She is married to Conservative councillor Raymond Connolly, who serves as vice chair of West Northamptonshire Council’s adult social care committee.
Lucy Connolly (pictured) has been jailed for stirring up racial hatred with a social media post
The 41-year-old has since deleted her post and blamed it on ‘a moment of extreme outrage and emotion’ when she was acting on ‘false and malicious’ information
A bin on fire outside the Holiday Inn Migrant hotel in Rotherham during one of the riots following the Southport stabbings
Lucy Connolly’s Conservative councillor husband Raymond Connolly, pictured outside Northampton Crown Court, watched on as she pleaded guilty to stirring up racial hatred
Connolly sat impassively on a videolink from HMP Peterborough as she was sentenced by Judge Melbourne Inman KC at at Birmingham Crown Court.
The recorder of Birmingham said Connolly had encouraged activity which threatened or endangered life.
Passing sentence on Lucy Connolly, the recorder of Birmingham Judge Melbourne Inman KC said: ‘Some people used that tragedy as an opportunity to sow division and hatred, often using social media, leading to a number of towns and cities being disfigured.’
The judge said the timing of Connolly’s post in the aftermath of the Southport attack had been an ‘aggravating feature’ of the offence.
After noting that Connolly’s post on X inciting attacks on hotels had been viewed 310,000 times, the judge added: ‘When you published those words you were well aware how volatile the situation was.
‘That volatility led to serious disorder where mindless violence was used.’
The judge added that Connolly had encouraged activity which threatened or endangered life.
Birmingham Crown Court heard further investigations by police found other messages from Connolly which she referred to illegal immigrants as ‘boat invaders’.
Protesters try to cram into the migrant hotel through a damaged fire exit in Rotherham
Serious violence and rioting by far-right protesters broke out onto the streets in Rotherham following the Southport attacks
However, speaking after he guilty plea, Mr Connolly said the last few weeks had been ‘quite traumatic’ for his wife and children – and that he now feels ‘kind of relieved’.
In one message, a week after her original post on X, it revealed she was aware of the public backlash, and with Ofsted being tagged, she said she would tell the education watchdog she had been the victim of doxing – where private or identifying information about an individual is published online.
Connolly added that if she was arrested, she would ‘play the mental health card’.
The court heard Connolly was arrested the next day, on August 6, and told police she made the post which initially saw her arrested because the Southport children had died in ‘horrific’ circumstances.
She said she had also lost her own son in horrific circumstances and this had ‘triggered’ her. She said she felt that children were not safe, but later took the tweet down because she realised it was wrong.
Connolly admitted having strong views on immigration and did not like illegal immigrants and wanted them ‘gone’ because they were ‘unchecked’ and denied their race or religion was a factor.
She told officers she was horrified when rioters started setting fire to hotels, as happened in Rotherham on August 4.
Mr Valli told the court Connolly was bailed, only for officers to then receive a further report highlighting other ‘tweets by Mrs Connolly which appeared to be racist’.
A man looks out of The Holiday Inn hotel in Rotherham as counter demonstrators stand outside with signs saying ‘refugees welcome’
Police officers stand near the broken windows of the hotel in Rotherham during an anti-immigration protest
The court heard that although Connolly had deleted her account, some of her posts could still be seen after they were shared to other users of the platform.
In a message on August 3, she wrote about an ‘illegal boat invader, sorry, refugee.’
A response on X from April 30 regarding a sword attack said: ‘Not thought to be terror-related? Someone stabbing someone with a sword is pretty terrorist like. I bet my house it’s one of those boat invaders.’
Another, from February in response to a post which suggested there was no place in society for islamophobia, Connolly replied: ‘F*** off, it’s not even a word.’
The court heard she also shared a post by far right activist Tommy Robinson about a black man being tackled in the street for an act of public indecency, commenting: ‘Somalian, I guess? Loads of them’, followed by a vomit emoji.’
Connolly was rearrested and gave a prepared statement in which she said anybody who waved a large knife around in public was a terrorist.
In relation to the post she shared from Tommy Robinson, Connolly said she was aware of Somali people in her local community and therefore could recognise the male in the video to be Somalian.
Officers also then uncovered a WhatsApp message written three weeks after the ‘burn hotels’ post on X, in which said: ‘The raging tweet about burning down hotels has bit me on the arse LOL (laugh out loud).
Flames erupted beside Sunderland police station during the riots breaking out on August 2 – part of widespread disorder across the country following the Southport stabbings
Liam Muir, defending, said the manner in which Connolly had lost her son, called Harry, in 2012, had had a major bearing on her.
The 19-month-old died from dehydration after a series of basic errors by NHS medics, an inquest found.
The Connollys took the toddler to hospital with severe diarrhoea and vomiting, where he was wrongly diagnosed with a stomach upset and sent home. When they returned 48 hours later they were turned away by hospital staff.
A GP also failed to diagnose the real problem before Mr Connolly woke up at 4am to Harry not breathing.
Mr Muir said she had been ‘crying out repeatedly for help’ from medics, only to be ‘turned away’.
The court heard Connolly, who has a 12-year-old daughter, had no previous convictions. She faced a maximum sentence of seven years for the offence of publishing written material to stir up racial hatred.
False claims that the Southport attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker had quickly spread online and led to riots breaking out in towns and cities across the UK.
Connolly, from Northampton, later apologised for acting on ‘false and malicious’ information and appeared to have subsequently deleted her X account.
Her husband – wearing a Union Jack tie pin – watched his wife’s sentencing from the public gallery today but left court without comment.
The councillor serves as vice chair of the local authority’s adult social care committee
Speaking outside court after his wife’s guilty plea via videolink at Northampton Crown Court last month, Mr Connolly said the last few weeks had been ‘quite traumatic’ for his wife and children – and that he now feels ‘kind of relieved’.
He said his wife regrets making the post, which she deleted within two hours, describing her as ‘the opposite’ of a racist’ an ‘upset housewife’ posting about what transpired to be misinformation about the Southport stabbings.
He told reporters: ‘The stuff I hear on the TV is not really Lucy. She knows that she overstepped the mark and there is consequences for it. Hopefully she’ll be able to learn from this and move on with her life.’
The councillor, who represents Delapre and Rushmere, added that he had received messages of support from residents asking him not to resign, saying: ‘I’ve had really good support from my fellow councillors. It’s not affected my role.’
Connolly’s husband previously told the BBC after an online backlash against her that she had made one ‘stupid, spur of the moment tweet out of frustration and quickly deleted it’.
He added: ‘She’s a good person and she’s not racist. She’s got Somalian and Bangladeshi kids she looks after and she loves them like they’re her own.’
The disturbances in the north-eastern city were among a series of clashes earlier this month
The aftermath of violent disorder in Hull city centre which saw rioters tear through the shopping district
Frank Ferguson, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Unit, previously said Connolly had ‘mistakenly believed she could evade justice by hiding behind a screen’.
He added: ‘Using threatening, abusive, or insulting language to incite racism online is unacceptable and against the law.
‘During her police interview, Lucy Connolly stated she held strong views on immigration, admitted she did not like illegal immigrants, and claimed that children were not safe from them. While having strong or differing political views is not an offence, inciting racial hatred is – and that is what Connolly has admitted to doing.
‘The prosecution presented evidence that showed Mrs Connolly’s racist tweets were sent from her X account both in the weeks and months before the Southport attacks, as well as in the days following.’
It comes after the far-right riots following the killings of three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport on July 29, which saw the courts packed with defendants.
The attack was wrongly blamed on a fictitious Islamist migrant, a theory spread through online misinformation.
Violence broke out in cities across England and also in Northern Ireland – and has been followed by a hundreds of charges including for children as young as 11, while those arrested also include a 69-year-old accused of vandalism in Liverpool.
Three girls were killed at the Taylor Swift-themed dance class, including Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven (pictured)
Bebe King (left), six, was also killed in the horror attack in Southport in July, alongside Alice Aguiar, nine (pictured right)
Father-of-three Tyler Kay, 26, was jailed for 38 months on August 9 after sharing online Lucy Connolly’s social media post about burning down hotels housing asylum seekers
A father-of-three was jailed at Northampton Crown Court for 38 months on August 9 after re-posting part of Connolly’s X message.
Tyler Kay, 26, of Ellfield Court, Northampton, admitted a charge of publishing material intended to stir up racial hatred.
Passing sentence on Kay after he pleaded guilty, Judge Lucking told him: ‘You posted as you did because you thought there were no consequences for yourself from stirring up racial hatred in others.
‘The overall tone of the posts clearly reveals your fundamentally racist mindset.
‘I am sure that when you intentionally created the posts you intended that racial hatred would be stirred up by your utterly repulsive, racist and shocking posts that have no place in a civilised society.’
Three young girls, Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, 9, were killed in the Southport attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance session in July. Eight other children and two adults were injured in the July 29 rampage.
Axel Rudakubana, 18, and from the Lancashire village of Banks, has been charged with their murder.
