The rapists, paedophiles and terror offender given shorter sentences than Lucy Connolly
'It is more jail time than some paedophiles and domestic abusers get,' Ray Connolly said on Tuesday after his wife, Lucy, lost her sentence appeal. Significantly more, and all for a tweet. 'The court had the opportunity to reduce her cruelly long and disproportionate sentence, but they refused,' he said, lamenting the lack of mercy they had shown a woman who had no previous convictions and who admitted to having made a mistake.
Connolly was arrested in the wake of the Southport attack after calling for hotels housing asylum seekers to be set on fire. Now, her husband has said, she is being forced to pay 'a very high price'. That price is 31 months in jail.
Boris Johnson has branded the ruling a clear example of how Sir Keir Starmer's Britain is 'losing its reputation for free speech and turning into a police state'.
When you look at the cases where far more egregious offences have been met with shorter or suspended sentences, Connolly's treatment in the courts begins to look unduly harsh.
Here are some of the most striking examples.
Huw Edwards avoided an immediate jail sentence in September 2024. The BBC newsreader admitted accessing indecent images of children. It was found he had paid a paedophile, from whom he received 41 illegal images of child sex abuse, and asked for them to be sent to him even after he was told the people in the pictures 'looked young'.
Deeming that Edwards did not need to be jailed in order to protect the public, the chief magistrate accepted that he understood the gravity of his offence and was responding to therapy. He handed him a six-month sentence, suspended for two years.
The paedophile who argued he should get same treatment as Edwards
A man who received child abuse images from the same source as Edwards was given a suspended sentence after arguing he should get the same treatment as the BBC star.
In December, Jac Davies was given a 12-month sentence, suspended for two years, after pleading guilty to the possession of class A drugs and indecent images of children. The images were sent to him by the same man who sent pictures to Edwards.
The child rapist handed a suspended sentence
A convicted child rapist avoided jail due to the prison overcrowding crisis in 2023. Rees Newman was jailed for just two years after being convicted of the historic rape of a child under the age of 14. A judge agreed to suspend his sentence for two years. When, months later, he breached the terms of his sentence by flying to Egypt without notifying officers and was hauled back in front of the court, he avoided jail a second time.
The judge said: 'The only reason you have escaped immediate custody today is because of the prison overcrowding crisis.'
The domestic abuser given less than two years
A man who was found to have been mentally, physically and emotionally abusive to a woman over a three-year period was given 21 months in prison suspended for two years.
Daniel Ashbrook pleaded guilty to controlling and coercive behaviour in November 2024. He was also handed a 10-year restraining order.
In a statement, the woman said she had been so badly affected by his appalling behaviour she doubted she would 'even be here today' without her family's support.
The doctor found with child abuse images
Mansoor Khan was a top NHS consultant, a father of four, and was deemed a 'pillar of society' before he was found with more than 100 'abhorrent and perverted' images of children on his phone.
Khan was spared jail at his sentencing in 2023. He was handed eight months, suspended for two years.
The rapist jailed for 18 months
A man who pleaded guilty to sexual assault and indecent exposure was given an 18-month sentence, suspended for two years.
Nikhil Chopra was arrested after police were alerted to the assault in Swindon in September 2023 by members of the public who were concerned for a woman's safety.
Chopra escaped immediate jail and was told to complete 55 days of rehabilitation, 43 days in a sex offending programme and ordered to pay a £187 victim surcharge.
The lab technician convicted of terror offences – who avoided a prison sentence
A man who was convicted of seven charges of possessing terrorist information was sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for two years, in February 2024 – six months before the disorder that followed the Southport killings.
Charles Cannon, who was described as having 'a dangerous mindset', collected documents on how to make homemade explosives and weapons. He spoke 'enthusiastically of the stabbing of asylum seekers'. A court heard how he 'repeated on many occasions anti-Semitic tropes ' and 'said he would kill, when speaking about people of colour'. A guide to making explosives was found on his mobile phone.
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