Lucy Connolly has been released from prison after serving more than 300 days for a social media post in what is believed to be the longest sentence ever handed down in Britain for a single online comment.
Connolly, a former childminder and wife of Conservative councillor Raymond Connolly, walked free from HM Prison Peterborough on Thursday, August 21st.
She had been jailed in October for 31 months after pleading guilty to inciting racial hatred.
Her conviction stemmed from a post on X in the immediate aftermath of the Southport killings last July, when Axel Rudakubana, a British-born teenager of a Rwandan background, murdered three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.
In her post, viewed more than 310,000 times before she deleted it less than four hours later, Connolly wrote, “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 politicians with them.”
She was ordered to serve 40% of her sentence in custody before release on licence. Her attempt to appeal was rejected in May, despite her lawyers citing mitigating factors, including the death of her 19-month-old son and her responsibility for a chronically ill husband and 12-year-old daughter.
Ray Connolly called the sentence “shocking and unfair,” arguing that his wife had been made an example of.
The case has indeed raised the suspicion that there is a two-tier justice system in place in Britain, with political affiliation playing a part in who gets sent to prison.
“The reality is that, in the UK, the application of the law depends partially on your politics,” europeanconservative.com columnist Lauren Smith recently wrote, drawing attention to a case similar to Lucy Connolly’s.
Ricky Jones, a Labour councillor, was recently cleared of encouraging violent disorder despite telling a crowd, “They are disgusting Nazi fascists. We need to cut all their throats and get rid of them all,” before drawing his finger across his throat. A jury acquitted him after a year on bail.
As Lauren Smith wrote:
It’s difficult to see this as anything other than two-tier justice … What Jones said was the same as, if not worse than, Connolly’s poorly judged tweet.
Others voiced similar outrage. On Thursday, political scientist Matt Goodwin posted, “Lucy Connolly should never have been jailed.”
Rupert Lowe MP declared, “Lucy Connolly—today is the day she finally comes home. What has happened to that poor woman and her family is evil, no other word.”
Lucy Connolly will remain on licence until the end of her full sentence. If she commits any further offences during that time or breaches any of her release conditions, she could be returned to prison.
