LUCY Connolly has blasted the “broken” prison system as she joined Nigel Farage on stage at the Reform Party conference today.
Former childminder Connolly – who’s also the wife of a Conservative councillor – was jailed last year for stirring up racial hatred against asylum seekers in the aftermath of the Southport murders.
Connolly and Farage have appeared together at Reform’s conference[/caption]
Lucy Connolly was jailed last year for inciting racial hatred against asylum seekers[/caption]
However, following her release on August 21 – after serving 40 per cent of her 31-month sentence – Connolly has claimed she was a “political prisoner” and said she would take legal action against the “two-tier system”.
Today, she appeared on the main stage of the conference in a special live recording of The Telegraph’s Planet Normal podcast with Allison Pearson and Liam Halligan, the newspaper said.
She was also pictured smiling alongside Farage during the event.
Speaking on stage, Connolly said she “never in a million years” thought she would be arrested and jailed for the tweet she sent.
Connolly was jailed for making a tweet – which was deleted after three-and-a-half hours – which said: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the ba***rds for all I care… if that makes me racist so be it.”
She had made the post the same day three children were murdered by Axel Rudakubana in Southport.
Connolly had tried to appeal her sentence in May but the Court of Appeal dismissed the case.
She said today: “Never in a million years did I ever think I was going to end up in prison. And it’s not funny but as I said earlier if you didn’t laugh, you’d cry.
“However, I learnt a lot in there and things that you’d never see in any other walk of life, and I really hope that I can change some things having come from there.
“Because it really is such a broken system, the whole system just needs completely reforming.”
Her appearance was followed by an address from Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice before leader Nigel Farage closed the two-day event with a speech.
Tice had visited Connolly while she was imprisoned, and claimed she was being “mistreated” in jail.
He told The Sun she was a “political prisoner” – and vowed to introduce “Lucy’s Law”, to stop similar cases of overly harsh punishments if Reform came to power.
Speaking before her appearance at the conference, Tice said: “It was so unjust, such an appalling infringement of free speech from an authoritarian prime minister.
Tice also said Sir Keir Starmer was “one of the biggest hypocrites in the land” for supporting Connolly’s conviction, highlighting how he had previously suggested people who quickly deleted offensive social media statements should not necessarily face criminal action.
While serving as Director of Public Prosecutions, he issued guidance that recommended a more lenient approach towards suspects who “swiftly” deleted social media posts and expressed “genuine remorse”.
Connolly’s post was viewed 310,000 times in the three-and-a-half hours before she deleted it.
