The spouse of a Conservative councillor has misplaced an attraction in opposition to her 31-month jail sentence for a web-based rant about migrants on the day of the Southport assaults.
The judgment handed down by Lord Justice Holroyd on the Court docket of Attraction on Tuesday mentioned there was “no arguable basis” that Lucy Connolly’s authentic sentence was “manifestly excessive”.
“The application for leave to appeal against sentence therefore fails and is refused,” it mentioned.
In a press release, her husband Raymond Connolly, who misplaced his seat as a Tory West Northamptonshire district councillor in Might however stays in town council, insisted his spouse is “not a racist” and that she “loved” kids from numerous backgrounds whereas she labored as a childminder.
Lucy Connolly was arrested on 6 August 2024 after calling for “mass deportation now” in an X submit on 29 July, which additionally mentioned motels housing asylum seekers ought to be set on hearth.
“If that makes me racist so be it,” she wrote.
The submit was considered 310,000 occasions within the three-and-a-half hours earlier than Connolly deleted it.
She was sentenced to 31 months in jail at Birmingham Crown Court docket final October, after pleading responsible to a cost of inciting racial hatred. She was ordered to serve 40% of the sentence in jail earlier than being launched on licence.
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Raymond Connolly outdoors the Court docket of Attraction. Pic: PA
Connolly shared her X submit on the identical day three younger women had been killed in a knife assault at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport final yr.
False info claiming the perpetrator was a Muslim asylum seeker unfold on-line, resulting in riots and unrest in a number of areas throughout the UK.
Axel Rudakubana, 18, was jailed for all times with a minimal time period of 52 years in January after pleading responsible to murdering Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar in Southport that day.
Connolly, from Northampton, later apologised for performing on “false and malicious” info.
Reacting to the attraction resolution, her husband described it as “shocking and unfair”, including that Connolly is a “good person and not a racist”.
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(L-R) Southport victims Elsie Dot Stancombe, Bebe King, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar
Southport murders resurfaced nervousness over son’s loss of life
Connolly final week instructed judges she was “really angry, really upset” and “distressed that those children had died” when she shared her X submit.
“Those parents still have to live a life of grief,” she mentioned. “It sends me into a state of anxiety and I worry about my children.”
However in his judgment on Tuesday, Lord Justice Holroyd mentioned the principal floor of Connolly’s attraction was “substantially based on a version of events put forward by [her]”, which he and his colleagues Mr Justice Goss and Mr Justice Sheldon “rejected”.
He mentioned: “We of course have every sympathy with the applicant over the death of her son, and we can understand why she remains angry about the circumstances of his death.”
The choose mentioned he “therefore accepts” that the occasions in Southport “had an impact on her which went beyond that felt by many others”, however: “As the judge rightly said, she did not post a message of support and sympathy to the victims of the Southport attack and the bereaved.”
Connolly additionally instructed the judges that, regardless of conversations along with her authorized staff, she had not understood that by pleading responsible she was accepting that she meant to incite violence.
When requested if she meant for anyone to set asylum motels on hearth, Connolly mentioned: “Absolutely not.”
However Lord Justice Holroyd mentioned he discovered her to be “intelligent and articulate”, and was due to this fact “unable” to simply accept that she “entered her guilty plea with no understanding of what it entailed”.
Defendant ‘took care of youngsters of African heritage’
In a press release launched shortly after the judgment on Tuesday, Mr Connolly insisted that his spouse is “not a racist”.
“As a childminder she took care of small children of African and Asian heritage; they loved Lucy as she loved them,” he mentioned.
“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.”
He mentioned he believes the “system wanted to make an example” of his spouse to make sure they had been “scared to say things about immigration”.
“This is not the British way,” he mentioned.
He added: “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 indignant about three little women who had been brutally murdered in Southport. She realised the tweet was unsuitable and deleted it inside 4 hours. That didn’t imply Lucy was a ‘far proper thug’ as Prime Minister Keir Starmer claimed.”
