Freedom for Lucy Connolly: mother jailed for Tweet released

Lucy Connolly will be released today after spending more than nine months in prison for a social-media post, according to reports in British media.

Ms Connolly was sentenced to 31 months in prison last year for a message she posted on social-media platform X on the day that three young girls were killed by an attacker with a knife at a dance class in Southport, Merseyside. In her message, following widespread speculation online about the ethnicity and religion of the attacker, she called for "mass deportation" and told followers to "set fire ... for all I care" to hotels housing asylum seekers, reports the Daily Telegraph.

It notes that at the time she posted the message, the mother-of-one had about 9,000 followers on X. Her message was reposted 940 times and viewed 310,000 times before she deleted it three and a half hours after posting it, saying she regretted it.

The message in full reportedly read: "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."

Ms Connolly's supporters claim she has been subjected to an unfairly long jail term and made a scapegoat for the rioting last summer.

She has spent more than nine months behind bars after pleading guilty to making a racially inflammatory post on X in the wake of the Southport riots in July last year.

In May, she had an appeal against her sentence refused by three Court of Appeal judges at the Royal Courts of Justice. 

The Telegraph reports that Richard Tice, the deputy Reform UK leader who visited Ms Connolly in prison, said she should not have pleaded guilty. “There was pressure in the legal system to get her to plead guilty. That was the establishment working in its mystical ways,” he claimed.

“The proof of my point is that Ricky Jones, the Labour councillor, can urge for people’s throats to be slit live on TV in front of a big crowd and be found not guilty by a jury. It proves the whole point about two-tier justice."

Frank Ferguson, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s special crime and counter-terrorism division, said: “It is not an offence to have strong or differing political views, but it is an offence to incite racial hatred – and that is what Connolly admitted to doing.

“The prosecution case included evidence which showed that racist tweets were sent out from Lucy Connolly’s X account both in the weeks and months before the Southport attacks – as well as in the days after. The CPS takes racial hatred extremely seriously, and will never hesitate to prosecute these cases where there is enough evidence to do so.”

Ms Connolly’s treatment and case – as well as its implications for freedom of speech and thereby for the connected freedoms of freedom of conscience and freedom of religion – exhibit some parallels with the treatment of pro-life Christian activists being charged for praying silently outside abortion clinics.

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce is being investigated by police for a third time as a result of silently praying outside an abortion clinic.

The investigation is occurring even though the Catholic pro-life campaigner and charity worker has already received a payout and apology from West Midlands Police after being arrested on two previous occasions for the "thought crime" of silent prayer.

Furthermore, earlier this year, Ms Vaughan-Spruce lodged a complaint against the police force, accusing officers of continuing to harass her simply for standing near an abortion clinic in Birmingham, England, and silently praying.

But it has now emerged that West Midlands Police is investigating Ms Vaughan-Spruce for a third time, and that the force has asked prosecutors whether there is enough evidence to charge her.

As a result of these sorts of cases, such as Ms Connolly and Ms Vaughan-Spruce, the UK has, rather to its surprise, found itself being singled out for criticism by the likes of US Vice-President JD Vance, a Catholic convert.

He has spoken publicly about how the present-day UK offers a troubling example of declining freedoms of speech, conscience and religion in Western countries that once were viewed as bastions of such liberties.

RELATED: Is JD Vance right that free speech for Christians is under attack?

Photo: Birmingham Crown Court where Lucy Connolly was jailed for 31 months, Birmingham, England, 17 October 2024. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images.)

‍