The wife of a Conservative councillor has admitted sending a social media message stirring up racial hatred against asylum seekers on the day of the Southport attacks.
Lucy Connolly, who is married to West Northamptonshire councillor Raymond Connolly, pleaded guilty at Northampton Crown Court on Monday to a charge of inciting racial hatred by publishing and distributing “threatening or abusive” written material on X, formerly Twitter.
Details of the offence were not opened by the prosecutor in the case but a previous hearing was told the 41-year-old childminder posted a message which read: “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.”
Connolly, of Parkfield Avenue, Northampton, entered her guilty plea via a video-link to HMP Peterborough during a hearing lasting just seven minutes.
Wearing a flower-patterned short-sleeved dress, Connolly spoke only to enter her plea and confirm that she could hear the judge.
Adjourning Connolly’s case for sentence at Birmingham Crown Court on October 17, Judge Adrienne Lucking KC told her the ordering of pre-sentence reports was no indication of the likely sentence.
The judge said the case was being transferred to Birmingham to avoid any potential appearance of bias given Connolly’s husband held a political post in the local area.
Judge Lucking told Connolly: “Sentencing will entirely be a matter for the judge on the next occasion but it’s likely to be a substantial custodial sentence.
“In the meantime, you are remanded in custody.”
A father-of-three was jailed at Northampton Crown Court for 38 months on August 9 after re-posting part of Connolly’s X message.
Tyler Kay, 26, of Ellfield Court, Northampton, admitted a charge of publishing material intended to stir up racial hatred.
Passing sentence on Kay after he pleaded guilty, Judge Lucking told him: “You posted as you did because you thought there were no consequences for yourself from stirring up racial hatred in others.
“The overall tone of the posts clearly reveals your fundamentally racist mindset.
“I am sure that when you intentionally created the posts you intended that racial hatred would be stirred up by your utterly repulsive, racist and shocking posts that have no place in a civilised society.”
Connolly issued an apology for her X post before her arrest last month, saying she had acted on “false and malicious” information.
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