Tory councillor's wife jailed for racist Southport tweet is being ‘mistreated' in prison, Reform's Richard Tice claims
RIOT SHAME Tory councillor's wife jailed for racist Southport tweet is being 'mistreated' in prison, Reform's Richard Tice claims
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THE wife of a Tory councillor who was jailed for making racist tweets in the aftermath of the Southport murders is being "mistreated" in prison, it is claimed.
Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice says Lucy Connolly has been handcuffed and stripped of her privileges by prison officers.
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Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice
Credit: PA
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Lucy Connolly, who was sentenced to 31 months in prisonfor inciting racial hatred against asylum seekers
Credit: PA
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The childminder published the comments on her X account
Credit: x.com/@LJCJ83
Connolly posted comments on her X account just hours after teenager Axel Rudakubana murdered three girls in the Merseyside town on July 29 last year.
He alleges Connolly - married to Tory Raymond Connolly - is being "manhandled without provocation" after visiting her today at HMP Peterborough.
Mr Tice told reporters: "Five days after the incident, the bruises on her wrists are still significant – yellow. It was obviously horrible what she went through.
"On Thursday, she was manhandled, mistreated with no provocation. She was denied enhanced accommodation to which she was entitled and they gave her, frankly, the Nutters Wild Wing – druggies, violence.
"You have to think it's politically motivated. I think the next few weeks before her release are going to be very challenging, worrying.
"I think it would suit the authorities to want to provoke a violent reaction from Lucy. I told Lucy to be very careful."
He went on to say he met with HMP Peterborough's head of security, explaining: "He is looking at the complaint seriously. When we get the result of that complaint – if they have 'lost' the bodycam footage or any of that funny business then I will escalate the complaint and meet the Governor.
Mr Tice added: "I genuinely fear that she is actually being treated as a political prisoner for political purposes."
Connolly, 41, shared a call to arms following the deaths of Bebe King, six, nine-year-old Alice Dasilva Aguiar and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven.
Posts wrongly claimed monster Rudakubana was a Muslim asylum seeker when he was actually born in Cardiff and raised Christian.
Connolly wrote: "Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the b******* for all I care...
"If that makes me racist, so be it."
Riots erupted across the country as thugs clashed with police and targeted hotels housing asylum seekers.
After her post, Connolly sent a WhatsApp joking it had "bitten me on the a**e, lol".
She also said if she were to get arrested over it, she would "play the mental health card".
She was jailed for 31 months in October after admitting publishing threatening or abusive material intending to stir up racial hatred.
Connolly launched a bid against her "harsh" sentence but this was thrown out by Court of Appeal judges in May.
Mr Connolly previously defended his wife after she pleaded guilty - saying the case had been "traumatic" for her and their three children.
He revealed their son died in 2012 after a series of NHS blunders so when his wife sees any child get harmed, "she will kick off".
The councillor also branded Connolly "an upset housewife" and "just a middle aged mother" who got dragged into the situation by misinformation spreading online.
He added: "The stuff I hear is not really Lucy, she's probably the opposite of what she's having to admit to but she knows she's overstepped the mark and there's consequences for it," he said.
"Hopefully she'll be able to learn from this and move on with her life."
Connolly also tried to make a U-turn on her vile comments - claiming she was acting on "false and malicious" information.
But the Crown Prosecution Service said she told police she did not like immigrants in her custody interview.
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