The wife of a Conservative councillor has admitted sending a social media message stirring up racial hatred against asylum seekers on the day of the Southport attacks.
Lucy Connolly, who is married to West Northamptonshire councillor Raymond Connolly, pleaded guilty at Northampton Crown Court on Monday to a charge of inciting racial hatred by publishing and distributing “threatening or abusive” written material on X, formerly Twitter.
Details of the offence were not opened by the prosecutor in the case but a previous hearing was told the 41-year-old childminder posted a message which read: “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.”
Connolly, of Parkfield Avenue, Northampton, entered her guilty plea via a video-link to HMP Peterborough during a hearing lasting just seven minutes.
Wearing a flower-patterned short-sleeved dress, Connolly spoke only to enter her plea and confirm that she could hear the judge.
Adjourning Connolly’s case for sentence at Birmingham Crown Court on October 17, Judge Adrienne Lucking KC told her the ordering of pre-sentence reports is no indication of the likely sentence.
The judge said the case is being transferred to Birmingham to avoid any potential appearance of bias given Connolly’s husband holds a political post in the local area.
Judge Lucking told Connolly: “Sentencing will entirely be a matter for the judge on the next occasion but it’s likely to be a substantial custodial sentence.
“In the meantime, you are remanded in custody.”
Speaking outside court after the case, Mr Connolly said the last few weeks have been “quite traumatic” for his wife and children and he feels “kind of relieved”.
He said his wife regrets making the post, which she deleted within two hours, is “the opposite” of a racist, and had been an “upset housewife” posting about what transpired to be misinformation about the Southport stabbings.
He told reporters: “The stuff I hear on the TV is not really Lucy. She knows that she overstepped the mark and there is consequences for it.
“Hopefully she’ll be able to learn from this and move on with her life.”
The councillor, who represents Delapre and Rushmere, said he has received messages of support from residents asking him not to resign.
“I’ve had really good support from my fellow councillors,” he added. “It’s not affected my role.”
A father-of-three was jailed at Northampton Crown Court for 38 months on August 9 after re-posting part of Connolly’s X message.
Tyler Kay, 26, of Ellfield Court, Northampton, admitted a charge of publishing material intended to stir up racial hatred.
Passing sentence on Kay after he pleaded guilty, Judge Lucking told him: “You posted as you did because you thought there were no consequences for yourself from stirring up racial hatred in others.
“The overall tone of the posts clearly reveals your fundamentally racist mindset.
“I am sure that when you intentionally created the posts you intended that racial hatred would be stirred up by your utterly repulsive, racist and shocking posts that have no place in a civilised society.”
Connolly issued an apology for her X post before her arrest, saying she had acted on “false and malicious” information.
In a statement issued after the guilty plea, the Crown Prosecution Service said Connolly posted on X hours after the Southport killings, having encountered false information online that the perpetrator was a Muslim asylum seeker who had entered the country on a small boat.
Connolly was interviewed by police on August 6 and was charged three days later.
Commenting on the proceedings, Frank Ferguson, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Unit, said: “Using threatening, abusive or insulting language to rile up racism online is unacceptable and is breaking the law.
“During police interview Lucy Connolly stated she had strong views on immigration, told officers she did not like immigrants and claimed that children were not safe from them.
“It is not an offence to have strong or differing political views, but it is an offence to incite racial hatred – and that is what Connolly has admitted doing.
“The prosecution case included evidence which showed that racist tweets were sent out from Mrs Connolly’s X account both in the weeks and months before the Southport attacks – as well as in the days after.
“Connolly wrongly thought that she could escape justice by hiding behind a screen, but today she has pleaded guilty and admitted her crime. She will now face the consequences of her actions.”
