Lucy Connolly has lost her appeal against her 31-month sentence for inciting racial hatred following the following the horrific murders committed by Axel Rudakubana in Southport.
But having attended the hearing l believe she is the victim of a great injustice. I believe the evidence I heard at the Royal Courts of Justice showed that Lucy Connolly did not understand the effect of pleading guilty after she was advised by her original lawyer. I believe that Lucy Connolly is a victim of the state’s desire to crush the spontaneous rioting which took place last August. And I believe that comments like Lucy Connolly’s, however unpleasant, should not be illegal in a civilised country.
Having attended the hearing l believe Connolly is the victim of a great injustice
Lucy Connolly posted the tweet that led to her being jailed on 29 July, just hours after those murders. It read: ‘Mass deportation now. Set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care. While you’re at it, take the treacherous government and politicians with them. I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist, so be it.’
As Connolly explained during the appeal hearing, when she posted that tweet she was feeling, ‘Really angry, upset, distraught that those children had died and their parents would have to live a life of grief…I couldn’t understand how it had been allowed to happen – could it happen to my children? It made me desperately upset and angry.’
I sympathise with this. Given the horror of the crimes, and the failure of the state to prevent them, it was entirely rational to feel cold rage. Lucy Connolly’s response was particularly intense because she lost her son Harry at a very young age, in a way which destroyed her trust in the authorities.
In any event Lucy Connolly walked her dog that night, came home and deleted the tweet. At the appeal she said, ‘I’d calmed down – I knew it wasn’t an acceptable thing to say or the right thing to say.’
When Connolly deleted the tweet, no rioting had begun. The awful attacks on migrant hotels didn’t begin until the weekend of 3-4 August. And yet she was jailed for ‘inciting serious violence’.
During her appeal Lucy Connolly made it clear that she had no intent to cause violence. Indeed, as the riots began, but before she’d been contacted by the police, she tweeted her opposition to the violence taking case.
So why did Lucy Connolly plead guilty? After her arrest on 9 August she was held in police custody and then HMP Peterborough until she was taken to the Crown Court on Monday 12 August. There she met with her solicitor.
Both Lucy Connolly and her solicitor gave evidence at her appeal hearing. They disagreed about the advice Lucy Connolly had received. She was insistent that she did not realise she was pleading guilty on the basis that she had intended to incite serious violence. Connolly’s solicitor claimed that he had been clear with her.
They made for very different witnesses. Lucy Connolly was clear about what she could and couldn’t remember, but was very clear that her solicitor had not made the basis of plea clear. Her solicitor was far less convincing. He phrased his claims indirectly, saying things like ‘I would have told her…’ or ‘I would always have’.
Unfortunately for Connolly, the appeal court believed her solicitor, describing him as ‘conscientious’ in its judgment, and finding that they had ‘no doubt that he advised’ Connolly properly. They also described Connolly’s evidence as ‘incredible’. Having listened to the evidence I think they have made a grave error.
Then Crown Prosecution Service barrister, Naeem Valli, spent quite some time during the appeal hearing questioning Lucy Connolly on whether she is racist:
‘Do you accept that you hold strong views on immigration?’
‘I do’
‘Do you believe this country is being invaded by immigrants?’
‘I believe that we have a massive number of people in this country that are unchecked and that’s a national security risk.’
‘Do you believe that children in this country are not safe because of that?’
‘I believe that children in this country are not safe for a lot of reasons…anyone where we don’t know why they’re here or for what purpose is a risk to our children.’
‘Do you feel threatened by immigrants?’
‘Not threatened personally – I believe that anyone who comes into the country should be checked and have background checks.’
Clearly this questioning convinced the judges. Adam King, the leading barrister representing Connolly, argued that the original trial judge, His Honour Melbourne Inman KC, had given insufficient weight to the mitigating factors in Lucy Connolly’s case. The appeal court dismissed this, concluding that what they deemed to be Connolly’s ‘racism’ meant her attempts to discourage rioting and violence should be ignored.
Lucy Connolly will stay in jail until August. The state will continue to refuse to grant her either early release on ‘tag’ or the chance to see her family via Release on Temporary Licence, both of which are offered to prisoners who pose a real threat to the public. A country which honours free speech would free Lucy Connolly. We do not live in such a country.
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