Lucy Connolly: Childminder married to Tory councillor pleads guilty to stirring up racial hatred
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The wife of a Tory councillor has pleaded guilty to publishing written material to stir up racial hatred following the Southport stabbings.
Childminder Lucy Connolly, appearing via videolink from HMP Peterborough, admitted making the post about asylum seekers at Northampton Crown Court after she was previously arrested and re-arrested in the first half of August.
She published a post on her X account, which she later deleted, which read: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f*****g hotels full of the bastards for all I care… If that makes me racist, so be it.”
Connolly wrote the post on the day of the knife attack in Southport, Merseyside, when a group of children attending a Taylor Swift-themed dance class were attacked.
False information claiming the attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker spread online and led to riots across the UK.
Three young girls were killed in the attack on 29 July, while eight other children and two adults were injured.
Connolly, from Northampton, later apologised for acting on “false and malicious” information and appeared to have subsequently deleted her X account.
She is the wife of Conservative West Northamptonshire councillor Raymond Connolly.
Speaking outside the court, he said he was “relieved” it was over as it had been “traumatic” for his wife and three children.
Mr Connolly said she was “an upset housewife” and “just a middle aged mother” who got dragged into the situation by misinformation spreading online.
“The stuff I hear is not really Lucy, she’s probably the opposite of what she’s having to admit to but she knows she’s overstepped the mark and there’s consequences for it,” he said.
“Hopefully she’ll be able to learn from this and move on with her life.”
Mr Connolly added that their son had died so when his wife sees any child get harmed “she will kick off”.
And he said she feels the “Tory tag” is unfair but “she will cope with whatever they throw at her, she’s got strong resilience, she’ll come back a bigger person”.
Their son, Harry, died aged 19 months in 2012 from dehydration after a series of basic errors by NHS medics, an inquest found.
His parents took the toddler to hospital with severe diarrhoea and vomiting, where he was wrongly diagnosed with a stomach upset and sent home before they returned two days later and medical staff turned them away. Then a GP failed to diagnose the real problem and Mr Connolly woke up at 4am to Harry not breathing.
Elsie Dot Stancombe, Alice Dasilva Aguiar and Bebe King were killed in the attack. Pic: Merseyside Police
People accused of violence or inciting violence during the riots have been fast tracked through the justice system.
In Manchester, the sentencing of a 12-year-old twice, who cannot be named due to his age, involved in the violence was adjourned because his mother has gone on holiday to Ibiza.
District Judge Joanne Hirst told Manchester Magistrates’ Court she was “frankly astonished” that the boy’s mother had decided to fly abroad for a five-day sunshine break, with her son due in court having admitted two counts of violent disorder.
The mother has been issued with a parental summons to appear before the court when the judge passes sentence on 11 September.
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The boy, who was accompanied by his uncle, earlier admitted being part of a mob that attacked a bus outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in Manchester on 31 July.
Days later he was part of a group filmed kicking the windows of a vape shop and throwing a missile at a police van.
