The troubling case of Lucy Connolly

Jailed for a tweet, the childminder remains behind bars

Childminder Lucy Connolly was caring for infants at her home in Northampton on July 29 last year when she heard on the news about the murder of three young girls in Southport. She was upset – like many people - and had seen – again, like many – rumours that an illegal immigrant was responsible.

These had been fuelled by early eyewitness reports describing the killer as dark skinned, boosted by fake online news reports, and growing public discontent about hotels being filled with mostly young men claiming asylum.

Connolly described herself as a ‘ridiculously overprotective’ mother to her own 11-year-old daughter, and the news from Southport sent her into a panic. In anger and fear, she typed out to her 9,000 Twitter followers:

‘Mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care, while you’re at it take the treacherous government and politicians with them. I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist so be it.’

This tweet, up for less than four hours before deletion, would cost her a year in jail, where she remains today, following today’s decision by judges rejecting her appeal.

Connolly was sensitive to stories about infant suffering. She and husband Ray, a Conservative local councillor, had lost their son Harry 12 years earlier, a tragedy made more painful by catastrophic failures within the NHS.

Convinced her infant son’s illness was more serious than doctors told her, she had contested their diagnosis until eventually worn down by expert opinion. After numerous visits to the local hospital, Connolly had pleaded with doctors to put her son on a drip; instead, they were sent home to put Harry to bed. They woke at 4am the following morning to find their 19-month-old dead; her husband had attempted CPR, but nothing could bring him back.

The coroner ruled that the hospital had committed a series of catastrophic failures, but had not gross negligence manslaughter, as Ray and Lucy had believed. This tragedy left her heartbroken and fragile, and with a profound suspicion of the authorities. Even many years later Connolly would become profoundly upset at the suffering of children, and according to her husband would write to papers if there were stories about child neglect in the news.

Connolly was well-liked by the parents of the children she looked after, a diverse bunch who came from all over the world. Her husband joked that the house looked like ‘the United Nations’ after the morning drop-off. She was caring by nature, and described by one African parent as ‘the kindest British person I’ve met’.

She also held Right-wing views on immigration, and it is impossible to read the transcripts of her court case without concluding that this played a significant part in her fate. In terror of losing control amid last summer’s rioting, the government and justice system were determined to make an example and, like many weak regimes, lashed out where they could.

Connolly, shaken by events in Southport, tweeted out in anger but, having taken the family dog for a walk and had a chance to think better of it, deleted it the same evening. Later that week, and before she realised she was in trouble with the law, she had tweeted her condemnation of the rioting that followed. ‘FFS, I get they’re angry. I’m fucking raging, however, this is playing right into their hands. I do not want civil unrest on our streets. Tommy Robinson is not going to say but this is not going to get anyone anywhere. Protests yes but not riots,’ she tweeted over the weekend, by which point disorder had erupted across England. In another tweet, she wrote: ‘Last night was not protesting, it was rioting. People are playing right into the hands of the establishment and the media. We need people to come together intelligently and articulately, not riots.’ Again, she posted ‘I know people are angry, but violence is not the answer’. By then it was too late.

Her tweet came on the day of the murders, a Monday. The first stirrings of disorder had begun in Southport the following evening, spreading across the country on Friday and Saturday. In his sentencing remarks, the judge who sent her to jail mentioned the febrile atmosphere as an aggravating factor, yet while the country was shaken by Southport, there was no suggestion on the Monday that violence would follow. There had been no rioting following immigration-related atrocities in Manchester or Nottingham, when the authorities had successfully cultivated a message of togetherness. There was yet no indication that this time would be any different.

Yet Connolly’s tweet had already been viewed 310,000 times by the time she deleted, and screenshotted. As the days went on, she became subject to a ‘twitterstorm’, with some trying to get her husband sacked and others snitch-tagging in the police and Ofsted. By the end of the week Connolly had deleted her account, her last tweet asking: ‘Why are people more concerned by my political views than by the actual murder of three little girls?’

Many of us have experienced such a twitterstorm, returning to our laptop or phone to find that hundreds of people suddenly hate us. It’s not a nice feeling, but it passes.

Not for Connolly. A few days later, a woman who had never had any contact with the law found herself in a police station, then a courtroom and jail. She was charged under Section 19 of the Public Order Act 1986, with distributing material intending to stir up racial hatred, and with the far more serious crime of intending to incite serious violence. Arrested on 6 August regarding the offending tweet, and then bailed, she was arrested again three days later and interviewed about previous tweets - and that was the end of her previous life as a free woman.

The Daily Telegraph’s Allison Pearson, who has become Connolly’s leading champion, wrote last month about the surreal process that upended a woman’s life. Pearson described how Lucy went with the police ‘quiet as a lamb, she thought if she did as she was told everything would be fine,’ in her husband’s words. It was only when she was in the police station that the enormity of the situation dawned on her. One prison officer described Connolly at Peterborough jail as ‘the most petrified person I’ve ever seen arrive here’.

‘I couldn’t quite believe what they were telling me – someone who’d never broken the law,’ she said later. ‘Whatever I’d done, police made it quite clear I was going down for this, their intention was always to hammer me.’

Even while this was happening, strangers on the internet were trying to get at the Connollys: West Northamptonshire council received 13 anonymous complaints against Ray, calling for his resignation for standing by his wife. Denied bail – like almost all of the August transgressors - Lucy found herself potentially waiting months inside for a trial, and felt that she had no choice but to plead guilty to the charges laid before her.

Ray gathered character references, including a Nigerian mother who described Lucy as the ‘kindest, most diligent person who looked after everyone and anyone without any regard for their race or ethnicity.’ There was clearly a need to acquire diverse character references, rather resembling the persilschein which Germans once had to produce as proof they were not Nazis.

None of this seemed to matter when Connolly faced Judge Melbourne Inman KC on October 17. Sentencing her to 31 months in jail, which included a 25 per cent discount for pleading guilty, the judge said: ‘As everyone is aware 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 by mindless and racist violence, intimidation and damage.’

He directly linked her tweet to ‘serious disorder in a number of areas of the country where mindless violence was used to cause injury and damage to wholly innocent members of the public and to their properties’. Her culpability was ‘clearly a category A case – as both prosecution and your counsel agree, because you intended to incite serious violence’.

Pearson described how the police and Crown Prosecution Service afterwards released a statement saying that Lucy ‘told officers she did not like immigrants and claimed that children were not safe from them’.

‘But Lucy hadn’t said that,’ Pearson wrote: ‘What she said in her long interview with the police was, “I’m well aware that we need immigrants… I’m well aware that if I go to the hospital there are immigrants working there and the hospital wouldn’t function without them. I’m [also] well aware of the difference between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants and they are not checked and [nor is] what they might have done (any crimes) in their country of origin – it’s a national security issue and they’re a danger to children”.’

Pearson wrote that Connolly had cried about the misrepresentation; she was not a bigot, she said, and had been raised by a socialist mother. She had looked after children from all sorts of backgrounds - Lithuanians and Poles, Bangladeshis and Jamaicans, Nigerians and Somalis. Connolly was clearly someone with strong views about immigration but still capable of treating each individual on their own merits.

‘The Connollys asked for a transcript of the police interview which was grudgingly handed over after a long delay,’ Pearson wrote: ‘Lucy’s mother complained to the CPS and they corrected the statement on their website to match what Lucy had actually said. Too late.’

Connolly’s mother told the Telegraph journalist that ‘it would be hilarious… if it wasn’t so horrifying’. Her fellow inmates included murderers, and when they ‘questioned Lucy about her crime – “What you in for?” – and she explained it was a post on social media, “they cracked up”.’

In January, Connolly spent her 42^nd birthday in prison, and with his wife’s income gone, Ray was forced to sell his car. She was even denied Release on Temporary Licence, something granted to fellow inmates who had killed people by dangerous driving. ‘You’ve upset a lot of people, Lucy,’ one probation officer told her when asked why.

On Thursday last week, I attended Connolly’s appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand, the prisoner speaking by video phone from jail. The appeal came about thanks to the Free Speech Union, the group founded by Toby Young to campaign on behalf of people who have fallen foul of Britain’s speech laws.

The FSU had hired the services of Adam King, the highly-rated barrister who has become something of a free speech champion of late. King recently secured the release of a man who faced up to two years in jail for going to a fancy dress party dressed as the Manchester bomber. Yes, you read that correctly.

Without wishing to become a bore on the subject – and perhaps it’s too late - Britain has a real problem with speech laws. This shouldn’t be a right-wing talking point, but it goes against human nature to defend the rights of people whose opinions horrify you. Laws such as the Communications Act (2003) are used to harass people making basic statements of belief, while hateful online language is policed excessively. Connolly’s tweet may well have merited a criminal record and a fine; the question is whether a jail sentence represents justice or anarcho-tyranny.

Connolly’s supporters outside the court last week

It was certainly interesting to witness the anarcho-tyranny of the British state at close quarters; before Connolly’s case was heard in front of three judges, we sat through discussions of two previous cases, one involving a man who had run down and killed a sixteen-year-old boy. The murderer, we heard, had 22 previous convictions for 39 offences at the time of his offence, including robbery, affray and assaulting a police constable. The British state is filled with endless compassion for habitual criminals, always ready to give them ‘once more chance’ to turn their life around - but utterly ruthless against those who breach its speech codes and transgress its sacred values.

In a small courtroom off a corridor on the first floor, about 30 people were in attendance, including Lucy’s husband, representatives from the Free Speech Union, some well-wishers and a handful of sympathetic journalists (including Pearson and former GB News presenter Dan Wootton). In a very British scene, Connolly protesters outside were outnumbered by campaigners trying to stop a music festival in south London (they won, of course), and vastly outnumbered by pro-Palestinian demonstrators. I queued behind two well-spoken elderly ladies in keffiyeh scarves as we waited to get through airport-style security.

Questioned by King about her state of mind when she sent her tweet, Connolly described feeling anxious and scared and worrying about ever sending her own daughter out.

Was she upset about the Southport killings? ‘Absolutely, yes.’

Was she more protective than the average parent? ‘Ridiculously so.’

The tweet was read out, and King asked: Did you intend anyone to set fire to an asylum hotel? ‘Absolutely not’.

Did you intend for anyone to murder any politicians? ‘Absolutely not’.

Connolly said of her post that it was ‘not a nice thing to say’ but ‘it was never my intention to stir up racial hatred’. She felt ‘extreme outrage and emotion. I posted words which were wrong in every way.’

Connolly broke down in tears as she described the process of being arrested, taken to a magistrates’ court and then to a police station before arriving in Peterborough prison, all within the space of 24 hours. She had little sleep on the Saturday and Sunday before meeting her lawyer on Monday.

King argued that Connolly clearly did not intend to incite violence against migrants nor politicians, but had tweeted in anger and then deleted soon after (not ‘in due course’, as the original court judgement stated). Clearly, he argued, no one could claim beyond reasonable doubt that she intended to incite violence. What this looked like was someone who was scared and, facing months inside, pleaded guilty to something she does not accept she was guilty of - incitement to serious violence. She was totally out of her depth.

In the news reports last autumn, Connolly was sometimes described as ‘middle class’, but a keen observer of the English class system - as every journalist is - would be aware, from her accent and her history, employment and her home in a 1930s semi in a Midlands suburb, that she is not People Like Us. I make this point only to reiterate that it’s rarely PLU who find themselves in trouble with Britain’s authoritarian hate speech laws - it’s those who lack the connections, the nous or the sense that they can change the system. Perhaps if I was honest with myself, I’m sympathetic to her predicament because it offends some suppressed patrician sensibilities.

I also broadly share her politics, and feel that she’s in prison because of them. Earlier this month the music world rushed to the defence of an Irish rap group, Kneecap, who had called on people to ‘Kill your local MP’. Kneecap may face travel restrictions in the US as a result of their provocations, or perhaps there will be pressure on Glastonbury to ban them (which will be resisted). Despite the counter-terrorism police now investigating the case, it seems extremely unlikely that they will end up in jail - and rightly so.

Yet the state treats expressions of majority nationalism as an existential threat in a way it doesn’t any other worldview, including Irish republicanism or even Islamism, and this explains the extraordinarily harsh way it polices online discourse on the Right. Would I have the deep-seated fairness to care about free speech if it was mainly leftists being punished? I’d like to think so, but I couldn’t be sure. True liberalism goes against our instincts, and requires a ruling class who consciously cultivate such a generous spirit.

The obviously political nature of the sentencing was reiterated at the appeal, where the prosecution lawyer interrogated the childminder about her political views, opening with the words ‘Mrs Connolly, I have some questions about something you posted on social media platform X’.

‘Do you accept that you hold strong views on immigration?’ he asked: ‘You believe this country is being invaded by immigrants.’ It’s unchecked and it’s a national security issue, she replied. ‘Is it fair to say you do not want immigrants in this country? Do you feel threatened by immigrants? You do want mass deportations?’ All of these framings she denied, and argued her case coherently.

The court was reminded of other tweets brought up at the trial to show her views, where ‘further racist remarks’ were noted. She had been accused of having a ‘racist mindset’ and ‘extended hatred of immigrants’, and these tweets gave ‘further insight into her racist views’. Perhaps she holds racist views, or perhaps she’s the kindest British person an African immigrant could meet; perhaps both are true, and people are complex. Either way, being in possession of racist views is not a crime.

Belief in a ‘two-tier’ justice has stuck since last summer, and with good reason. While Connolly was denied bail, Labour councillor Ricky Jones, who was filmed telling a real-life crowd that ‘We need to cut their throats and get rid of them’, is still a free man, on bail awaiting trial. Many have noted the extraordinary sentences handed out for online speech by judges who show leniency elsewhere, but then judges are constrained by sentencing guidelines and the laws passed by politicians.

It is true, however, that the arrest, trial and sentencing of Connolly was carried out in a feverish atmosphere. As Laurie Wastell wrote in the Spectator, three days into the disorder ‘the Prime Minister told the country that the unrest we were seeing was the work of “gang[s] of thugs” who had travelled to “a community that is not their own” to smash it up.’ Stating that the violence was ‘clearly whipped up online’, Starmer was ‘whipping up the police, Crown Prosecution Service and courts to hysteria, demanding convictions. And none of it was true.’

As her extraordinary sentence was handed down, Connolly’s judge had declared that ‘It is a strength of our society that it is both diverse and inclusive. There is always a very small minority of people who will seek an excuse to use violence and disorder causing injury, damage, loss and fear to wholly innocent members of the public and sentences for those who incite racial hatred and disharmony in our society are intended to both punish and deter ‘

That is certainly true, although one might wonder if a society can be strengthened by being diverse and inclusive if that entails incredibly draconian punishments to deter ‘hatred and disharmony’. That rather sounds like a weakness – it certainly is to the British citizens who find themselves sent to prison for words written in anger.