Why was Lucy Connolly treated so harshly?

Lucy Connolly is finally free. She was released last Thursday having spent nine months in prison for a single tweet. It was posted just before the anti-migrant riots began last summer, after it was falsely rumoured that a Muslim asylum seeker was responsible for the stabbing of three young girls to death in Southport.

Just hours after that horror on 29 July 2024, Connolly posted:

‘Mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care, while you’re at it take the treacherous government and politicians with them. I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist so be it.’

She took the tweet down after just a few hours, but by then it was too late. She was soon arrested, convicted and was given a custodial sentence that exceeded many that were handed out to the rioters themselves.

Her release follows the acquittal of Labour councillor Ricky Jones for making similarly inflammatory comments last summer, but this time about the rioters. Speaking at a Stand Up To Racism rally, held in London, Jones denounced ‘disgusting Nazi fascists’, and said ‘we need to cut their throats and get rid of them’. He also made a throat-slitting gesture with his finger. Jones spent the months leading up to his trial on bail, while Connolly was refused bail twice.

We are left to wonder why two such similar cases had two such different outcomes. Citing the idea of ‘two-tier justice’, some claim that our justice system is biased against the political right, while being too lenient on the left. Connolly herself has gone even further. In her first interview since leaving prison, she described herself as UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s ‘political prisoner’.

The government and its supporters dismiss these accusations. They claim the cases are unexceptional, with both showing the justice system operating ‘normally’. They point to the fact that Connolly pleaded guilty, whereas Jones pleaded not guilty and was subsequently tried before a jury who decided to find in his favour. Some have suggested Connolly would not have been convicted had she also pleaded not guilty, and taken her case to trial. But that is something we will now never know. Supposedly there is nothing more to it than that.

Neither side is presenting the full picture here. Connolly was not a ‘political prisoner’ in any conventional sense of the word. She was not convicted for expressing disapproval of the government or its policies, or for belonging to a particular political group or organisation.

Connolly’s fate was sealed when she decided to plead guilty. This followed the understandable advice she received from her lawyer that this would lead to a lesser sentence. As severe as her sentence undoubtedly was, it was in line with what the law allows for inciting racial hatred by publishing and distributing threatening or abusive written material. It is certainly outrageous that we have laws on the statute book that can punish talking about rioting more severely than the actual rioting, but that is a problem with the law as it stands.

Nor is this necessarily a question of left vs right. In recent years, lengthy sentences have also been handed out to well-known left-wing activists, like Extinction Rebellion’s Roger Hallam, who was given a five-year sentence, later shortened to four, for conspiring to block traffic on the M25. Hallam’s case shows that long sentences are hardly reserved for those on the right of politics.

Still, those pretending this case was just business as usual are also wrong. It is highly likely that politics did influence the adjudication of Connolly’s case, thanks to how the government chose to respond to the riots.

Indeed, it was not just the sentencing of Connolly that seemed harsh. Notably, she was refused bail in both the Magistrates’ Court and the Crown Court. This is unusual for someone accused of anything other than a serious crime, especially when she had never been in any kind of trouble before. Under English and Welsh law, Connolly was entitled to be granted bail unless the prosecution satisfied the court that an exception applied. One such exception, and the only one that makes sense in Connolly’s case, is that a defendant will ‘commit further offences’ if released on bail. The judge must have believed that Connolly would come out of custody and reoffend – despite her having no previous convictions.

The decision to refuse Connolly bail had a huge impact on her case. She says she was desperate to get back to her family as soon as possible, and feared spending months in custody before trial. It also denied her time to reflect on her case with friends and family, and seek external advice. These periods of reflection are vital for criminal defendants. They allow them to weigh up their options without the pressure of being in custody.

There is good reason to think that politics played a role in denying Connolly bail. After all, the director of public prosecutions, Stephen Parkinson, had just announced at the time of the Southport riots that ‘anyone stirring up hateful or threatening activity on social media is potentially contributing to the violent disorder on our streets’. The Home Office also issued a warning to ‘think before you post’, which threatened action against anyone spreading misinformation or hate after Southport. The authorities were making a huge effort to present anyone who tweeted about the riots as just as culpable as those on the streets. Judges don’t take their decisions in a vacuum. They were bound to be influenced by the political climate around the riots.

This is why the decisions taken over her case were so harsh. She could have been granted bail. And she could have been given a suspended sentence, meaning that she could have gone home to her family rather than be sent to a prison cell. But that didn’t happen, partially because those in power took the view that a nasty, misinformed tweet, such as Connolly’s, was just as bad as the rioting itself. They saw her as responsible in some way for the violent unrest across the country.

You don’t have to believe Lucy Connolly was a political prisoner to recognise that politics may well have played a role in her deeply unjust treatment.

Luke Gittos is a spiked columnist and author.