Woman jailed for race hate post released from prison

Lucy Connolly's online post in the wake of the Southport killings led her to a 31-month jail term

A woman who was jailed for stirring up racial hatred in the aftermath of the Southport attack has been released from prison.

Lucy Connolly, 42, whose husband serves on Northampton Town Council, pleaded guilty in September after posting the expletive-ridden message on X the day three girls were stabbed in Southport in July 2024.

Connolly, from Northampton, called for "mass deportation now" and urged her followers on X to "set fire" to hotels housing asylum seekers.

She was released from HMP Peterborough earlier after she was handed a 31-month prison sentence in October at Birmingham Crown Court.

Connolly was freed from prison at the automatic release point of her custodial sentence, after serving 40% of her term in prison.

She will serve the remainder of her sentence on licence under the supervision of the probation service.

The former childminder posted her tweet on X on 29 July and was arrested on 6 August 2024

Connolly's case has sparked debate, with some criticising her sentence as excessive.

In response to the sentence, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said "it's time Parliament looked again at the Public Order Act".

How one woman's racist tweet sparked a free speech row

Lord Young of Acton, founder and director of the Free Speech Union, said it was a "national scandal" that Connolly had spent more than a year in prison "for a single tweet that she quickly deleted and apologised for".

Connolly's husband, Raymond, is a Northampton town councillor and former West Northamptonshire district councillor.

He had defended his wife, saying she was "a good person and not a racist" and that she had "paid a very high price for making a mistake".

In his sentencing remarks in October, Judge Melbourne Inman said Connolly's offence was "category A" - meaning "high culpability" - and that both the prosecution and her own barrister agreed she "intended to incite serious violence".

Sentencing guidelines for the offence indicate a starting point of three years' custody.

Sir Keir Starmer supported the sentencing during Prime Minister's Questions on 21 May, when he was asked whether Connolly's imprisonment was an "efficient or fair use" of prison.

He responded: "Sentencing is a matter for our courts, and 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. I will always support the action taken by our police and courts to keep our streets and people safe."

In May Court of Appeal judges refused her appeal to reduce the sentence.

Lucy Connolly is thought to have left the prison in a taxi

The former childminder posted her tweet on X on 29 July 2024.

On 6 August 2024 she was arrested, by which point she had deleted her social media account, but other messages were found by officers after they had seized her phone.

The post was viewed 310,000 times in the three-and-a-half hours before she deleted it.

Later in court she admitted to inciting racial hatred by publishing and distributing "threatening or abusive" written material on X.

It is understood Connolly was a passenger in a white taxi which left HMP Peterborough via the vehicle airlock, a set of two gates exiting the prison, shortly after 10:00 BST.

Once the external gate of the airlock had opened, it was reported the taxi drove off down the road past reporters.