Lucy Connolly 'to speak out for first time' after prison release

Lucy Connolly, who was imprisoned for inciting racial hatred against asylum seekers online on the day of the Southport murders, is set to break her silence this Friday, following her release from prison.

The 42 year old wife of Conservative councillor Raymond Connolly, left HMP Peterborough on Thursday morning and it's believed she will be giving a limited number of media interviews a day after gaining her freedom.

She spent her first day of freedom with her husband, daughter and parents, and was seen walking her dogs in the evening, according to the Daily Mail.

Ms Connolly received a 31-month sentence after posting on X: "Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the bastards for all I care ... if that makes me racist so be it."

She admitted to stirring up racial hatred by publishing and distributing "threatening or abusive" written material on X and was sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court in October last year.

The former childminder, hailing from Northampton, was required to serve 40% of her sentence behind bars before being released on licence.

It's understood that Ms Connolly was a passenger in a white taxi which exited HMP Peterborough via the vehicle airlock, a pair of gates leading out of the prison, shortly after 10am on Thursday.

Her case has ignited discussion, with some arguing that her sentence was overly harsh.

Responding to her release, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch declared Connolly's sentence was "harsher than the sentences handed down for bricks thrown at police or actual rioting".

In a post on X, Ms Badenoch drew comparisons between Ms Connolly's case and that of Ricky Jones, a suspended Labour councillor who was cleared of encouraging violent disorder at an anti-racism rally following the Southport murders.

Taking to X, Mrs Badenoch wrote: "Juries are a cornerstone of justice, but we shouldn't have to rely on them to protect basic freedoms.

"Protecting people from words should not be given greater weight in law than public safety. If the law does this, then the law itself is broken - and it's time Parliament looked again at the Public Order Act."

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage branded Ms Connolly's case as a "symbol of Keir Starmer's authoritarian, broken, two-tier Britain".

An attempt to challenge her sentence at the Court of Appeal was rejected in May, which was branded by Mr Connolly as "shocking and unfair".

The Northampton town councillor, and former West Northamptonshire district councillor, claimed his wife had "paid a very high price for making a mistake".

However, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer stood by it earlier this year.

He was questioned in May about Ms Connolly's case after her Court of Appeal application against her jail term was thrown out. During Prime Minister's Questions, when asked whether her imprisonment was an "efficient or fair use" of prison, Sir Keir 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."

Ms Connolly was arrested on 6 August, at which point she had deleted her social media account, but other messages containing further racist remarks were discovered by officers who seized her phone.

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