Wife of Tory councillor jailed for 31 months over race hate tweet

The wife of a Conservative councillor has been jailed for 31 months after admitting to 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 last month 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, from Northampton, later apologised for acting on “false and malicious” information and appeared to delete her X account.

She was jailed at Birmingham Crown Court on Thursday (17/10) after pleading guilty to publishing written material to stir up racial hatred.

Jack Peat

Jack is a business and economics journalist and the founder of The London Economic (TLE). He has contributed articles to VICE, Huffington Post and Independent and is a published author. Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.