Lucy Connolly, the wife of a former Conservative councillor jailed last year for a social media post about migrants on the day of the Southport attacks, is due to have her appeal against sentence heard at the Court of Appeal later this week.
With support from the Free Speech Union (FSU), Connolly is challenging the 31-month prison term she received in October 2024 after pleading guilty to inciting racial hatred. The case has drawn widespread attention while provoking debate about proportionality in sentencing and the treatment of prisoners whose offences attract public and media scrutiny.
The charges against Connolly, a childminder, followed an outburst on X (formerly Twitter) on 29 July last year, just hours after three girls were fatally stabbed at a holiday club in Southport by Axel Rudakubana. 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 and politicians with them.” She added: “I feel physically sick knowing what these [Southport] families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist, so be it.”
Less than four hours later, having had time to reflect, Connolly deleted the post, which had by that time been viewed over 310,000 times.
She was interviewed by police on 6 August, charged three days later, and remained in custody throughout the proceedings, ultimately pleading guilty to inciting racial hatred. At sentencing, Judge Melbourne Inman KC, the Recorder of Birmingham, said she was “well aware how volatile the situation was”, and that she had encouraged “activity which threatened or endangered life”.
The widely condemned nature of the tweet has never been in dispute. But Connolly’s sentence has become a lightning rod for criticism, with senior Conservatives questioning whether the punishment reflected a proper calibration of offence and context.
Suella Braverman, the former Home Secretary, said the 31-month jail sentence imposed on Connolly was “excessive” and claimed she was the victim of a “politicised two-tier justice system”.
Former Prime Minister Liz Truss concurred, adding: “Lucy Connolly should be released immediately and reunited with her family. The severity of her sentence is completely unjustifiable and a shocking example of two-tier justice which now prevails in Britain.”
Her sentence is comparable to, and in some cases exceeds, those handed down to individuals convicted of violent disorder during the same period. Philip Prescott, for example, was part of a mob that attacked a mosque during the Southport riots. The judge at Liverpool Crown Court found his offence was “clearly racially or religiously motivated disorder”. He received a sentence of 28 months.
With the FSU’s assistance, Connolly is now appealing her sentence on the grounds that the trial judge erred in assessing the offence’s severity and failed to give sufficient weight to mitigating factors. Her legal team argue that her emotional reaction to the events in Southport must be understood in light of her own bereavement: the death of her 19-month-old son following a hospital error, and the psychiatric difficulties that followed. They also point to her clean record, and to the fact she removed the post within hours.
While the appeal will focus on legal interpretation and sentencing guidelines, Connolly’s treatment in custody has raised further concerns. Under Ministry of Justice policy, prisoners serving determinate sentences of fewer than four years are typically eligible for release on temporary licence (ROTL) after completing 25% of their sentence. The scheme, intended to help inmates maintain family ties and gradually reintegrate into society, allows for home visits of up to two nights per month. Only Category A prisoners – those deemed a serious threat to public safety – and a handful of other high-risk groups are automatically excluded.
Connolly became eligible for ROTL in November 2024 but remains in custody, having failed to secure permission for even a single overnight stay. In her application, her lawyers cited the ill health of her husband and the deterioration in her 12-year-old daughter’s school attendance, which Connolly says is “totally out of character”.
According to probation documents, her application was delayed pending a full risk assessment. But internal prison communications suggest other factors have shaped the decision. One internal note states: “It is not necessarily going to happen due to the public interest.” Another reads: “The media interest has been raised as an issue in terms of any future ROTL applications.”
Connolly has also been denied early release on home detention curfew (HDC)—an alternative scheme allowing eligible prisoners to serve part of their sentence at home under electronic monitoring. Offenders convicted of racially aggravated offences are typically excluded unless they can demonstrate exceptional circumstances. Two fellow inmates who applied at the same time as Connolly have since been granted HDC, despite both serving sentences for causing death by dangerous driving.
Speaking to the Mail, Ian Acheson, a former prison governor who has advised the Government on extremism in jails, said he was “concerned” by the “apparent foot-dragging over consideration for release on temporary licence”. He added: “It can’t be right that someone who is otherwise eligible is not being considered because of either the prison’s failure to properly risk assess or her ‘notoriety’.
“In my opinion, and given the offence details and the background to her custodial behaviour I have seen, she ought to be an ideal candidate for early release to allow her reintegration to start. Many more risky individuals are walking free as a result of Labour’s emergency mass release legislation.”
For the FSU, Connolly’s case foregrounds the importance of ensuring that sentencing decisions, and the treatment of prisoners, are governed by law and principle rather than public pressure. We have been supporting Connolly since her conviction, and members of our team will be present at the Royal Courts of Justice later this week as her appeal is heard.
