Northampton childminder speaks exclusively to Allison Pearson, the Telegraph journalist who led the campaign for her release
22 August 2025
Daily Telegraph
Lucy Connolly has accused Sir Keir Starmer of holding her as a political prisoner in her first interview following her release from jail.
Mrs Connolly, 42, a childminder from Northampton, said it was “bizarre” she had spent more than a year behind bars for posting a tweet inciting racial hatred in the wake of the Southport murders.
Mrs Connolly, a mother of two, explained she was “upset and angry beyond belief” and that a “red mist” had clouded her judgment. She accepted the post on X was not her “finest moment” but insisted she did not “advocate violence”.
In an exclusive interview with Allison Pearson, the Telegraph journalist who led the campaign for her release, Mrs Connolly also accused the police of being “dishonest” in allegedly misrepresenting her views on immigration and threatened to bring a legal claim against them.
Mrs Connolly was sentenced to 31 months in prison after pleading guilty to a post that wrongly suggested Axel Rudakubana, who murdered three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party in Southport, had been an illegal immigrant.
Mrs Connolly called for “mass deportation now”, adding: “Set fire to all the f---ing hotels full of the b------s for all I care… if that makes me racist so be it.” She removed the tweet after three hours but by that time it had been viewed by 310,000 people.
The Southport murders sparked widespread disorder and rioting, prompting Sir Keir to condemn “far-right thuggery” and warn that anybody involved – whether directly or by “whipping up this action online” – would “face the full force of the law”.
Asked if she felt the Prime Minister’s statement on Aug 4 last year had affected the way she was treated by the criminal justice system, Mrs Connolly told The Telegraph: “A hundred per cent.”
She was arrested two days after his speech and subsequently denied bail.
Asked if she considered herself “Sir Keir Starmer’s political prisoner”, Mrs Connolly replied: “Absolutely. Me and several other people.
“It is important to remember that it wasn’t just me. I, for some reason, seem to have had the most coverage, but there are people that are in equally awful situations that shouldn’t be in there.
“And we should also be fighting for them and remembering them and when they come out, give them the same support.
“I think with Starmer he needs to practise what he preaches. He’s a human rights lawyer, so maybe he needs to look at what people’s human rights are, what freedom of speech means, and what the laws are in this country.”
She described Sir Keir’s speech, which she complained had sealed her fate, as “very divisive”, adding: “It [the speech] was very much… if you are bothered about children being murdered, you’re Right-wing. You know, you’re far-Right.”
But Mrs Connolly said: “That’s not [right]... people are going to be – and are entitled to be – upset, deeply upset about the unnecessary death of children.
“So it’s completely plausible that people are going to be upset and angry about the situation.”
She echoed complaints that authorities had kept back information from the public that had led to a vacuum of information and allowed rumours about the Southport killer to swirl on the internet.
Mrs Connolly said: “So why not just release the facts around the case?”
She said she pleaded guilty to the charge because, having been remanded in custody, she thought it would be the surest way of getting out of prison in time to spend Christmas with her daughter.
“Because I’d been remanded, I didn’t know how long [I’d be] waiting for a trial. The courts are so far behind [and] I’m not sure they would’ve been in any hurry to get my case to trial. And I have a daughter that needs me. I’m a stay-at-home mummy.
“She’s had me there her whole life and all I was thinking, what is my quickest route to her? I felt they’re going to throw the book at me for this. They’ve made that quite clear. They’ve done it to other people. What is my quickest route home?”
Mrs Connolly's daughter
Mrs Connolly’s daughter was at the forefront of her mind when she pleaded guilty Credit: Heathcliff O'Malley for The Telegraph
She also believed she had no chance of getting a fair trial in the wake of the uproar sparked by the riots.
“Even had I gone to trial, it was so prejudiced by that point, by the Government, by the police, by the press. I just, I don’t even think I would’ve had a fair trial because people have been told stuff already that actually wasn’t true,” she said.
The 31-month sentence handed down was a huge shock. She believed the notoriety her case had earned – and the pressure brought to bear by highly critical politicians in power – also led to her receiving worse treatment once in jail.
She believes she was singled out in part because her husband Ray, an engineer, was also a local Conservative councillor and that authorities wanted to make an example of her.
She said: “I’m just a woman from Northampton living in a three-bed semi that worked as a childminder with a husband as an engineer. Okay, he was a councillor. But that, people forget, that’s almost like a second job.
“His first job as an engineer, as a father, as a husband, we are nobody. We are not known to anybody. So I will never understand how it got to this.
“There’s people that have done far worse and people wouldn’t be able to name them, but they’d know my name, and I just find it all really, really bizarre.”
Mrs Connolly’s lengthy prison term has been contrasted with the case of Ricky Jones, a Labour councillor acquitted by a jury despite calling for the throats of far-Right activists to be cut in the wake of the Southport riots.
But Mrs Connolly said Mr Jones, who had walked free from court, had rightly not deserved to go to jail either. She said: “I’m pleased that the justice system did work for Ricky Jones and I’m glad that he was able to get bail and he was able to get good legal advice and have time to stop and think about how he was going to plead. I wasn’t given that luxury.
“I don’t advocate that we should be throwing anyone in jail for saying… something that he shouldn’t have done. It was silly. Does it really make him a criminal? Should we be putting people like him and I in prison? Absolutely not.”
Mrs Connolly told Allison Pearson she was shocked at being given a 31-month sentence and believed the notoriety her case had earned led to her receiving worse treatment in jail
Mrs Connolly told Allison Pearson she was shocked at being given a 31-month sentence Credit: Heathcliff O'Malley for The Telegraph
She said she was triggered to post her tweet by a visceral reaction to the Southport murders, which shocked the nation. Her distress was exacerbated by the loss of her first child, Harry who died aged just 19 months as a result of NHS blunders in 2012.
Mrs Connolly said: “I was just so upset and angry beyond belief. When the red mist is there and I still can’t comprehend how in this day and age we can allow that to happen. How have three children gone off to a dance class and their parents never get to pick them up again?
“I do know how that feels because I’ve lost a child. It is there’s just no words for it and I was just so upset.
“Of course, it [the tweet] wasn’t my finest moment and I don’t, I definitely don’t advocate violence or burning anything down or anything of the sort.”
She added: “It was just anger. I wasn’t thinking rationally.”
Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice Dasilva Aguiar
Mrs Connolly said the murders of Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice Dasilva Aguiar in Stockport triggered distress over the loss of her first child
She typed out the message, went for a walk and came home, realising “that’s really not an okay thing to write… I just deleted the post and didn’t think much more of it, to be honest”.
But eight days later, police arrived at the family home and arrested Mrs Connolly for inciting racial hatred. She said she knew the authorities wanted to “hammer” her when she was subsequently remanded in custody rather than given bail.
In her interview with the police, she says she told officers she was well aware of the difference between legal and illegal immigration, but told The Telegraph that her comments made in the interview were “massively twisted and used against me”.
She told officers: “I’m well aware that we need immigrants… I’m well aware that if I go to the hospital, there are immigrants there and the hospital wouldn’t function without them.” But her concern was for illegal immigrants who posed a threat to national security and a “danger to children”.
Police and the CPS subsequently released a statement – later corrected – that Mrs Connolly had “told officers she did not like immigrants and claimed that children were not safe from them”.
Mrs Connolly told The Telegraph she was now considering taking legal action over the statement put into the public domain.
“That’s something that I will be looking into. I don’t want to say too much because I need to seek legal advice on that, but I do think the police were dishonest in what they released and what they said about me, and I will be holding them to account for that.”
She added: “I’m well aware that the country needs immigration. I’m well aware that if we kicked every immigrant out tomorrow, we’d be screwed. I explained this to them [the police] and I explained it’s not immigration that I have an issue with. I have no issue with people’s skin, colour, race, religion, anything of that. It’s simply the fact that this particular group of people are unchecked and I don’t feel that it’s safe for our children to be walking the streets with people that we don’t know.
“I’m sure the vast majority of them are really, really decent people just wanting to build a better life. But if there’s one or two in there, that’s too many for our children.”
Mrs Connolly had missed her daughter’s birthday but bought her a bracelet and necklace on her release. But she also remains defiant despite her ordeal.
“They hope they broke me while I was in there [jail] but I’m here to tell you that they didn’t. I don’t want to see women being kept away from their children – sent to prison when they don’t need to be there. I will continue to fight and really hope that I can … help reform the system.”
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