yeah it is. As I say, I don't think it would unreasonable for a post like to get a caution or a fine. Jail time seems insanely draconian, almost surreal.
Thanks for a report which is better balanced than most on this emotive subject and which is based on actually attending the appeal hearing.
Coming up to date, looking at the appeal judgment, issued today, it does seem that she was doomed by the pre-sentencing report, which found she had "failed sufficiently to consider the consequences of her actions, particularly in the context of the influence of social media and her underlying racist attitudes." Thus, far from helping her, the PSR was used against her and it seems from your account of her cross-examination at the appeal hearing that this was something the prosecution wanted to push on, despite the fact that, as you say, having racist views is not (yet) a crime and the charge on which she was sentenced was one specific message.
It's difficult to rail against the judgment, which applies a dry analysis of the confines of the guidelines and rules relevant to the case. Once Connolly was put into the criminal justice machine, nothing short of a Hollywood movie style rejection of the machine by a jury could have saved her. But the near complete impunity of the hate marchers on the streets of London every weekend (with the "glider girls" getting off with hardly even a slap on the wrist) leaves a sense of unease about this.
She pleaded (pled?) guilty but only got a 25% reduction in her top-of-the range sentence as a result. I worry that people in her situation are given a nod and a wink that if she pleads guilty she will just get a slap on the wrist, but an early guilty plea means no jury, who I think would have had the common sense needed in this case.
The 25% reduction for the guilty plea is in accordance with the guidelines. There was not much the Court of Appeal could be expected to do about that; this is one of those dry aspects on which the appeal could not hope to gain much traction.
The root cause of the very stiff sentence is that the judge decided, consistent with Starmer's intimations of what he expected from judges, that the context was one in which the offence was regarded as very serious (and the top of the scale is seven years), although the sentencing judge was not explicit about his pre-mitigation sentence. Because of her personal circumstances, the loss of her child and (it seems) being a first offender, these mitigating factors took it down to 3.5 years, to which a 25% reduction was applied. Thus, once the criminal justice system decided to go after Lucy Connolly, it had the means, acting within the rules, to come down very hard indeed on her, whilst formally accepting a significant degree of mitigation. It appears that she was told by her lawyer that she was in the top category for this offence and who knows what, in her terror at being on remand, she really processed properly on what she was admitting to, but the fact of courtroom life is that the Court heard from her and her lawyer, and accepted that she had been fully informed about what she was agreeing to.
On a common sense review, stepping back from it all, and bearing in mind this was one instant, emotive reaction (retracted within a few hours) amongst thousands that were doubtless furiously hammered out during that period, singling this out as deserving of fast-track condign punishment will strike many people as over the top. The Met refused to pursue some vile statements on placards at pro-Hamas marches in London on the grounds of "context" and two women who were actually prosecuted for glider motifs celebrating the Hamas attack of October got featherlight sentences, seemingly because the judge accepted that the offences had taken place at a time of ‘much passion and polarisation’ when 'emotions ran very high on this issue'. Well quite.....
I'm not sure who it benefits by locking her up. It's cost us money, ruined her life, deprived a child of a mother and a husband of a wife. Just a ridiculous waste. Though I'm disappointed they didn't make her a cellmate of Lucy Letby. The Two Lucys is a play we all need to see.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was serious pressure from very senior figures in Whitehall (maybe even from Ministers) who want her to be made an example of. As Ed rightly points out, our speech laws are outdated, broken and draconian in the extreme. Anyone who is remotely knowledgeable about this issue can see they need updating, but the powers that be do not update it. All answers point to the state endorsing this assault on our freedoms and Lucy Connolly's extremely harsh sentence is their Lidice.
We should take every opportunity to remind Kneecap that the British establishment considers a childminder from Northampton a greater threat than they are. Real edgy, hard men, those lads!
Islam is incompatible with civilization. Civilizations that refuse to allow that to be said are doomed.
Britain will not imprison anyone for saying “Kill the Boer”, nor for calling for the eradication of Israel. It is, for all intents and purposes, a caliphate now.
moderate islam is not incomparable with our civilisation, it is the fanatical, radical and westernised low IQ of islam that plagues our culture and country. The British are historically romantic arabists with a strong interests in the region
Poor Lucy's fate fills me with terror. Certainly I will never express any political opinions on X ever again nor retweet because it is far too dangerous so they have succeeded in silencing me.
We no longer live in a free democracy only a simulation of one.
The fact that in this country politicians are openly calling fall the release of yet more violent criminals to deal with overcrowding whilst Lucy connelly has this ludicrously over the top sentence imposed on her, proves Solzhenitsyn’s word that in communist regimes criminals are left off whilst the political criminals are punished most severely.
It shames our country that nonsense like this happens. I fear the current regime will start to crack down on all political dissent as potential “hate speech”. Who knows! I might be sharing a cell with you Ed!
I remember reading an article by George Jonas about a Jewish man who asked around among his acquaintances if any of them could hide him and his family. All said no. In the end it was a German who didn't know this Jewish man and wasn't even that keen on Jews yet didn't feel he could stand by while a family who had done nothing wrong was sent to the death camps. So he hid them and in doing so put himself in grave danger. That's not the kind of act one can imagine this worm of a judge performing. Unlike the German gentleman, this judge has no sense of fairness or proportion.
"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."
This point is well made. I’d suggest that “majority nationalism” is a proxy for ethnically British which is regarded by elites as an existential threat to the further expansion of multiculturalism (and the state administration that serves same) and so, the logic goes, the majority must be further diluted (in case they want the wrong thing or god forbid vote for it) via endless diverse migration with any opposition to that meantime silenced as racist - or when sterner measures are needed by making an example of people like Lucy Connolly.
Note: if immigration and multiculturalism had the effect of causing the administrative state to contract then they would cease to be state religion over night.
As usual, you speak truth to power. And, also as usual. power speaks from arrogated power, in no way justly. The justice system in America as well as the in Great Britain, often renders injustice.
The appeal was misconceived in light of her being convicted of what is essentially a political crime where guilt requires nothing of what we would traditionally think of as criminal
Might seem odd, but this case always reminds me of Marine A, as he was known during his court martial. Marine A shot a captured, wounded, and probably dying, enemy combatant in Afghanistan - on camera, quoting The Bard as he did so. Legally, meaning in reality, that was a serious crime, which is why he was at first found guilty of murder. However, the public couldn’t see what was actually so bad, from a common sense standpoint. Murder? Marine A was fighting in our armed forces, he was entitled to shoot the man in open combat - somebody already had - and the dead man would not have hesitated to shoot Marine A if the tables were turned. With Lucy Connolly, what she did was technically serious too, yet we can all see it in the round as someone just shouting into the void. I thought that was what social media was for?
This, like so many news stories in the past year, are eroding my belief in this country and its traditions of fair play and even-handedness. I understand why the prosecution would want to indict Lucy Connelly's political beliefs (as expressed on social media . . . a warning to us all a out oversharing), but both trial judge and appeal panel ought to have dismissed this as irrelevant at worst or misleading at best. A single tweet that was up for four hours, deleted and then the writer condemned the rioting in the days after ought to be dispositive.
Ms. Connolly broke the local blasphemy laws. But since the UK has a lenient enough justice system, she only gets a couple of years in prison. Elsewhere, blasphemy might earn her death by stoning.
I think part of the issue is the actual guidelines the sentence follows, there has to be a level of interpretation from the judge, but from my understanding he has a 'score card' to mark the severity and her sentance falls at the low end of what he fairly scored . The case is obviously maddening and disproportionate. But from a strict legal definition her sentence was never going to be lessened. Funny thing is this specific use of the law was brought in after 9/11 to counter islamic extremism. There must be a better way to do this, such a sad and deeply unfair case
Yes, which is why I wanted to make clear that comparing each judge's decision with other judgements isn't really fair. They have guidelines. The question remains why the CPS proceeded with the case.
The CPS - that impartial body formerly headed by the current Labour Prime minister? yes its a real head scratcher isn't it? TBH we need some kind of rule that nobody that works in Law, Education or within Religious Bodies can be a member of a political party - or if they are everybody who takes the Bar or a senior post in a culturally influential role in the public realm has to state their membership of any political parties.
I have just read the trial ruling and actually the judge puts her crime towards the top of range. It is easy to find and speaks for itself, but to me he does what his critics claim: he (wrongly, IMO) saw her as a real-life rabble-rouser whose typed words were intended to cause serious harm to real people.
Thanks for writing this. Absolutely enraging story. I feel so very sorry for her and her family.
yeah it is. As I say, I don't think it would unreasonable for a post like to get a caution or a fine. Jail time seems insanely draconian, almost surreal.
Thanks for a report which is better balanced than most on this emotive subject and which is based on actually attending the appeal hearing.
Coming up to date, looking at the appeal judgment, issued today, it does seem that she was doomed by the pre-sentencing report, which found she had "failed sufficiently to consider the consequences of her actions, particularly in the context of the influence of social media and her underlying racist attitudes." Thus, far from helping her, the PSR was used against her and it seems from your account of her cross-examination at the appeal hearing that this was something the prosecution wanted to push on, despite the fact that, as you say, having racist views is not (yet) a crime and the charge on which she was sentenced was one specific message.
It's difficult to rail against the judgment, which applies a dry analysis of the confines of the guidelines and rules relevant to the case. Once Connolly was put into the criminal justice machine, nothing short of a Hollywood movie style rejection of the machine by a jury could have saved her. But the near complete impunity of the hate marchers on the streets of London every weekend (with the "glider girls" getting off with hardly even a slap on the wrist) leaves a sense of unease about this.
She pleaded (pled?) guilty but only got a 25% reduction in her top-of-the range sentence as a result. I worry that people in her situation are given a nod and a wink that if she pleads guilty she will just get a slap on the wrist, but an early guilty plea means no jury, who I think would have had the common sense needed in this case.
The 25% reduction for the guilty plea is in accordance with the guidelines. There was not much the Court of Appeal could be expected to do about that; this is one of those dry aspects on which the appeal could not hope to gain much traction.
The root cause of the very stiff sentence is that the judge decided, consistent with Starmer's intimations of what he expected from judges, that the context was one in which the offence was regarded as very serious (and the top of the scale is seven years), although the sentencing judge was not explicit about his pre-mitigation sentence. Because of her personal circumstances, the loss of her child and (it seems) being a first offender, these mitigating factors took it down to 3.5 years, to which a 25% reduction was applied. Thus, once the criminal justice system decided to go after Lucy Connolly, it had the means, acting within the rules, to come down very hard indeed on her, whilst formally accepting a significant degree of mitigation. It appears that she was told by her lawyer that she was in the top category for this offence and who knows what, in her terror at being on remand, she really processed properly on what she was admitting to, but the fact of courtroom life is that the Court heard from her and her lawyer, and accepted that she had been fully informed about what she was agreeing to.
On a common sense review, stepping back from it all, and bearing in mind this was one instant, emotive reaction (retracted within a few hours) amongst thousands that were doubtless furiously hammered out during that period, singling this out as deserving of fast-track condign punishment will strike many people as over the top. The Met refused to pursue some vile statements on placards at pro-Hamas marches in London on the grounds of "context" and two women who were actually prosecuted for glider motifs celebrating the Hamas attack of October got featherlight sentences, seemingly because the judge accepted that the offences had taken place at a time of ‘much passion and polarisation’ when 'emotions ran very high on this issue'. Well quite.....
What a miserable state of affairs. It is also a lesson in how being so online really is not good for us or our impulses.
I'm not sure who it benefits by locking her up. It's cost us money, ruined her life, deprived a child of a mother and a husband of a wife. Just a ridiculous waste. Though I'm disappointed they didn't make her a cellmate of Lucy Letby. The Two Lucys is a play we all need to see.
Both should be let out of jail.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was serious pressure from very senior figures in Whitehall (maybe even from Ministers) who want her to be made an example of. As Ed rightly points out, our speech laws are outdated, broken and draconian in the extreme. Anyone who is remotely knowledgeable about this issue can see they need updating, but the powers that be do not update it. All answers point to the state endorsing this assault on our freedoms and Lucy Connolly's extremely harsh sentence is their Lidice.
We should take every opportunity to remind Kneecap that the British establishment considers a childminder from Northampton a greater threat than they are. Real edgy, hard men, those lads!
Islam is incompatible with civilization. Civilizations that refuse to allow that to be said are doomed.
Britain will not imprison anyone for saying “Kill the Boer”, nor for calling for the eradication of Israel. It is, for all intents and purposes, a caliphate now.
moderate islam is not incomparable with our civilisation, it is the fanatical, radical and westernised low IQ of islam that plagues our culture and country. The British are historically romantic arabists with a strong interests in the region
“Moderate Islam” is the lie told by people who don’t want to admit the truth.
“The radical Muslim wants to kill you. The moderate Muslim wants the radical Muslim to kill you.”
Poor Lucy's fate fills me with terror. Certainly I will never express any political opinions on X ever again nor retweet because it is far too dangerous so they have succeeded in silencing me.
We no longer live in a free democracy only a simulation of one.
I feel sick to my stomach.
The fact that in this country politicians are openly calling fall the release of yet more violent criminals to deal with overcrowding whilst Lucy connelly has this ludicrously over the top sentence imposed on her, proves Solzhenitsyn’s word that in communist regimes criminals are left off whilst the political criminals are punished most severely.
It shames our country that nonsense like this happens. I fear the current regime will start to crack down on all political dissent as potential “hate speech”. Who knows! I might be sharing a cell with you Ed!
I remember reading an article by George Jonas about a Jewish man who asked around among his acquaintances if any of them could hide him and his family. All said no. In the end it was a German who didn't know this Jewish man and wasn't even that keen on Jews yet didn't feel he could stand by while a family who had done nothing wrong was sent to the death camps. So he hid them and in doing so put himself in grave danger. That's not the kind of act one can imagine this worm of a judge performing. Unlike the German gentleman, this judge has no sense of fairness or proportion.
"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."
This point is well made. I’d suggest that “majority nationalism” is a proxy for ethnically British which is regarded by elites as an existential threat to the further expansion of multiculturalism (and the state administration that serves same) and so, the logic goes, the majority must be further diluted (in case they want the wrong thing or god forbid vote for it) via endless diverse migration with any opposition to that meantime silenced as racist - or when sterner measures are needed by making an example of people like Lucy Connolly.
Note: if immigration and multiculturalism had the effect of causing the administrative state to contract then they would cease to be state religion over night.
As usual, you speak truth to power. And, also as usual. power speaks from arrogated power, in no way justly. The justice system in America as well as the in Great Britain, often renders injustice.
Appeal rejected, sadly.
The appeal was misconceived in light of her being convicted of what is essentially a political crime where guilt requires nothing of what we would traditionally think of as criminal
Might seem odd, but this case always reminds me of Marine A, as he was known during his court martial. Marine A shot a captured, wounded, and probably dying, enemy combatant in Afghanistan - on camera, quoting The Bard as he did so. Legally, meaning in reality, that was a serious crime, which is why he was at first found guilty of murder. However, the public couldn’t see what was actually so bad, from a common sense standpoint. Murder? Marine A was fighting in our armed forces, he was entitled to shoot the man in open combat - somebody already had - and the dead man would not have hesitated to shoot Marine A if the tables were turned. With Lucy Connolly, what she did was technically serious too, yet we can all see it in the round as someone just shouting into the void. I thought that was what social media was for?
This, like so many news stories in the past year, are eroding my belief in this country and its traditions of fair play and even-handedness. I understand why the prosecution would want to indict Lucy Connelly's political beliefs (as expressed on social media . . . a warning to us all a out oversharing), but both trial judge and appeal panel ought to have dismissed this as irrelevant at worst or misleading at best. A single tweet that was up for four hours, deleted and then the writer condemned the rioting in the days after ought to be dispositive.
Ms. Connolly broke the local blasphemy laws. But since the UK has a lenient enough justice system, she only gets a couple of years in prison. Elsewhere, blasphemy might earn her death by stoning.
I think part of the issue is the actual guidelines the sentence follows, there has to be a level of interpretation from the judge, but from my understanding he has a 'score card' to mark the severity and her sentance falls at the low end of what he fairly scored . The case is obviously maddening and disproportionate. But from a strict legal definition her sentence was never going to be lessened. Funny thing is this specific use of the law was brought in after 9/11 to counter islamic extremism. There must be a better way to do this, such a sad and deeply unfair case
Yes, which is why I wanted to make clear that comparing each judge's decision with other judgements isn't really fair. They have guidelines. The question remains why the CPS proceeded with the case.
The CPS - that impartial body formerly headed by the current Labour Prime minister? yes its a real head scratcher isn't it? TBH we need some kind of rule that nobody that works in Law, Education or within Religious Bodies can be a member of a political party - or if they are everybody who takes the Bar or a senior post in a culturally influential role in the public realm has to state their membership of any political parties.
I have just read the trial ruling and actually the judge puts her crime towards the top of range. It is easy to find and speaks for itself, but to me he does what his critics claim: he (wrongly, IMO) saw her as a real-life rabble-rouser whose typed words were intended to cause serious harm to real people.
Unbearable.The staggering lack of compassion. Entirely political.