Lucy Connolly says she is considering legal action against the police after her release from prison for inciting racial hatred in a tweet during the aftermath of the Southport riots.
The 42-year-old childminder, from Northampton, said she had been made “[Sir Keir] Starmer’s political prisoner” when she was sentenced to 31 months in jail after posting on X: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the bastards for all I care … if that makes me racist so be it.”
Connolly, the wife of a Conservative councillor, had pleaded guilty to inciting racial hatred by publishing and distributing “threatening or abusive” written material. She served 40 per cent of her sentence, before being released on Thursday on licence.
Speaking to The Telegraph following her release, she said she made the post in a “red mist” fit of anger, before later deleting it after returning from a walk. Eight days later, she was arrested at her home and questioned by police.
The 42-year-old said she knew the authorities wanted to “hammer” after she was refused bail and the Crown Prosecution Service released a statement that suggested she told officers in her police interview she did not like immigrants.
A press release from the CPS after her guilty plea on September 2 included a quote from Frank Ferguson, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Unit, which said: “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 claimed her words were “massively twisted and used against me”, and is now considering taking legal action.
She said: “I don’t want to say too much because I need to seek legal advice on that, but I do think the police were dishonest in what they released and what they said about me, and I will be holding them to account for that.”
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