The husband of Lucy Connolly said she is a victim of “intimidation” by Sir Keir Starmer and the government, as he warned: “they’re making a big example of her”. Ray Connolly said his wife, who was jailed for 31 months inciting racial hatred in a tweet, was being portrayed as “far right”. But he insisted: “She’s nothing to do with her far right.” And Mr Connolly said his wife would tell her story when she was finally released from jail.
The Prime Minister this week defended the sentence after the Court of Appeal rejected calls for it to be reduced, saying he was “strongly in favour of free speech,” but adding: “I am equally against incitement to violence against other people.” Critics of the sentence of more than two and a half years say Mrs Connolly, a former Conservative councillor, has been treated more harshly than other criminals who committed more serious crimes.
Speaking to Michelle Dewberry on GB News, Mr Connolly said: “What I see on the TV, what I see in the newspapers, is a really big inconsistency. So obviously, I’m going to take it personally. I look at Lucy and I just think they’re making a big example of her.
“I mean, even today I’m walking in the shop, people are looking at me down in the supermarket. I’m like, What’s his problem? They come up to me and I don’t know who this guy is, and he goes, ‘You’re Ray Connolly? Oh my god, they’re so harsh with your wife.’
“We’ve got a government who are just doing what they want to do, and if anybody don’t like it, as Keir Starmer said: leave.
“It’s total intimidation.”
“I’m hoping that when Lucy’s released, I mean, the government have used the press to destroy this family and I’m hoping that they’ll give Lucy the opportunity to use that to give her version of events and just let her speak and try and defend herself. I think she’ll do a really good job.”
Giving a message to Keir Starmer and the Home Secretary, Mr Connolly said: “You’ve picked Lucy Connolly as the poster girl of the far right. When she gets the opportunity to come out and have her say, I think she’ll pretty much change people’s minds.
“She’s done a good job about now with just a couple of phone calls from the prison and I think when she’s sitting on the sofa, sitting on Zoom, talking to people, there’ll be a different Lucy currently portrayed.
“Some of these people probably need to clear their desks”
He said the couple’s 12-year-old daughter was “really struggling with it”. Mr Connolly said: “She does suffer from anxiety anyway, so this really hasn’t helped the situation at all.”
Mrs Connolly posted on X on the day of the murder of three children by Axel Rudakubana in Southport: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the bastards for all I care… if that makes me racist so be it.” She deleted the Tweet before being arrested.
She was sentenced to two years and seven months in prison after pleading guilty to inciting racial hatred and told that she would serve 40% of her sentence in prison before being released on licence.
In February, former Labour MP Mike Amesbury was given a 10-week sentence after he admitted punching a constituent in the street. The punishment was reduced to a suspended sentence after he appealed.
