Keir Starmer defends 31-month prison sentence for Lucy Connolly after Tory councillor’s wife was jailed over social media rant about Southport murders
Sir Keir Starmer today defended the 31-month prison sentence for a Tory councillor’s wife who was jailed over her social media rant about the Southport murders.
The Prime Minister was quizzed about Lucy Connolly’s case after her appeal against her sentence was rejected yesterday.
The 42-year-old mother had posted on X/Twitter on the day of the murder of three children by Axel Rudakubana in Southport, Merseyside, in July last year.
She wrote at the time: ‘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.’
Rupert Lowe, the ex-Reform UK MP who now sits as an independent in the House of Commons, this afternoon grilled Sir Keir about Connolly’s sentence.
During Prime Minister’s Questions, he asked if Sir Keir thought Connolly’s jailing over ‘one foolish social media post, soon deleted’ was ‘an efficient or fair use of prison’.
The PM replied that ‘sentencing is a matter for our courts’, adding: ‘I celebrate the fact that we have independent courts in this country.
‘I am strongly in favour of free speech, we’ve had free speech in this country for a very long time and we protect it fiercely.
‘But I am equally against incitement to violence against other people.’
Sir Keir Starmer today defended the 31-month prison sentence for a Tory councillor’s wife who was jailed over her social media rant about the Southport murders
The Prime Minister was quizzed about Lucy Connolly’s case after her appeal against her sentence was rejected yesterday
Raymond Connolly (centre) with supporters outside the Court of Appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London yesterday
Sir Keir said he would ‘always support the action taken by our police and courts to keep our streets and people safe’.
Connolly’s social media post was viewed 310,000 times in three-and-a-half hours before she deleted it.
Her Court of Appeal application against her jail term was dismissed yesterday by three judges at the Royal Courts of Justice.
Connolly told the Court of Appeal that during discussions with her barrister at the crown court she did not understand that by pleading guilty she was accepting that she intended to incite violence.
But Lord Justice Holroyde, one of the three appeal judges presiding over her case, said that in her evidence to them, the judges found Connolly to be ‘intelligent and articulate’.
He added that they were ‘unable’ to accept that she ‘entered her guilty plea with no understanding of what it entailed’.
Connolly – who is married to Raymond Connolly, a Conservative councillor on Northampton Town Council – was arrested on August 6, by which point she had deleted her social media account.
But other messages which included further racist remarks were uncovered by officers who seized her phone.
In a written judgment, Lord Justice Holroyde, said: ‘There is no arguable basis on which it could be said that the sentence imposed by the judge was manifestly excessive.
‘The application for leave to appeal against sentence therefore fails and is refused.’
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Sir Keir Starmer today defended the 31-month prison sentence for a Tory councillor’s wife who was jailed over her social media rant about the Southport murders.
The Prime Minister was quizzed about Lucy Connolly’s case after her appeal against her sentence was rejected yesterday.
The 42-year-old mother had posted on X/Twitter on the day of the murder of three children by Axel Rudakubana in Southport, Merseyside, in July last year.
She wrote at the time: ‘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.’
Rupert Lowe, the ex-Reform UK MP who now sits as an independent in the House of Commons, this afternoon grilled Sir Keir about Connolly’s sentence.
During Prime Minister’s Questions, he asked if Sir Keir thought Connolly’s jailing over ‘one foolish social media post, soon deleted’ was ‘an efficient or fair use of prison’.
The PM replied that ‘sentencing is a matter for our courts’, adding: ‘I celebrate the fact that we have independent courts in this country.
‘I am strongly in favour of free speech, we’ve had free speech in this country for a very long time and we protect it fiercely.
‘But I am equally against incitement to violence against other people.’
Sir Keir Starmer today defended the 31-month prison sentence for a Tory councillor’s wife who was jailed over her social media rant about the Southport murders
The Prime Minister was quizzed about Lucy Connolly’s case after her appeal against her sentence was rejected yesterday
Raymond Connolly (centre) with supporters outside the Court of Appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice in central London yesterday
Sir Keir said he would ‘always support the action taken by our police and courts to keep our streets and people safe’.
Connolly’s social media post was viewed 310,000 times in three-and-a-half hours before she deleted it.
Her Court of Appeal application against her jail term was dismissed yesterday by three judges at the Royal Courts of Justice.
Connolly told the Court of Appeal that during discussions with her barrister at the crown court she did not understand that by pleading guilty she was accepting that she intended to incite violence.
But Lord Justice Holroyde, one of the three appeal judges presiding over her case, said that in her evidence to them, the judges found Connolly to be ‘intelligent and articulate’.
He added that they were ‘unable’ to accept that she ‘entered her guilty plea with no understanding of what it entailed’.
Connolly – who is married to Raymond Connolly, a Conservative councillor on Northampton Town Council – was arrested on August 6, by which point she had deleted her social media account.
But other messages which included further racist remarks were uncovered by officers who seized her phone.
In a written judgment, Lord Justice Holroyde, said: ‘There is no arguable basis on which it could be said that the sentence imposed by the judge was manifestly excessive.
‘The application for leave to appeal against sentence therefore fails and is refused.’
