The Court of Appeal has refused to reduce Lucy Connolly’s 31-month prison sentence, which she received for a single tweet posted just hours after three young girls were murdered in Southport by Axel Rudakubana.
With the FSU’s support, Lucy — a childminder and mother of a 12-year-old daughter — appealed the sentence. Her barrister, Adam King, argued that Lucy pleaded guilty to a level of culpability she should not have done because she wasn’t properly advised by her solicitor — an argument the Court of Appeal rejected. He also argued that the judge in the case, HHJ Melbourne Inman KC, failed to give due weight to powerful mitigating factors, such as the death of Lucy’s 19-month-old son following a hospital error, which meant she felt the death of the schoolgirls in Southport particularly acutely, and the fact that, after having time to reflect, she deleted the post within hours and then apologised for it. That, too, was an argument rejected by the Court of Appeal.
We are deeply disappointed by this judgment. No one disputes the tweet was offensive, but the sentence of more than two-and-a-half years is plainly disproportionate.
Lucy received a longer jail term than Philip Prescott, who joined a racially aggravated mob attack on a mosque and threw missiles at the police in a riot in Southport. Mohammed Islam Choudhrey, a man who pleaded guilty to paying for sex with a child prostitute in Telford, received a lighter sentence. And the same judge who jailed Lucy gave 20 months to Haris Ghaffar, who pleaded guilty to violent disorder during last summer’s riots.
The FSU funded Lucy’s appeal and members of our team were present in court throughout. Two-and-a-half years for a single tweet is grossly disproportionate, and it should trouble anyone who believes the law must be applied evenly, without fear or favour.
We remain concerned that, despite being eligible for temporary release under standard Ministry of Justice guidelines, Lucy has repeatedly been denied it. Internal prison communications suggest that concerns about media attention have influenced those decisions — a deeply troubling development in any democracy governed by the rule of law.
The bottom line is that Lucy should be at home with her family — not locked up in jail while her husband, Ray, battles bone marrow failure and her 12-year-old daughter struggles to cope without her mother.
As our General Secretary, Lord Young of Acton, put it:
“This is terribly disappointing. How can it be right for Lucy to have been condemned to spend more than two-and-a-half years in jail for a single tweet when members of grooming gangs who plead guilty to the sexual exploitation of children get lower sentences? Lucy should be at home with her 12-year-old daughter and husband, not rotting in jail.”
You can donate to Lucy’s crowdfunder, set up by the award-winning Telegraph journalist Allison Pearson, here.
And you can read Allison’s powerful interview with Lucy, which helped bring this case to national prominence, here.
