Case of Tory councillor's wife Lucy Connolly jailed for Southport tweet is raised with Marco Rubio at the White House
The case of a mother who was jailed for a racist tweet after the Southport murders has reportedly been raised with the US Secretary of State.
Lucy Connolly, who is the wife of Conservative councillor Ray Connolly, was handed a 31-month sentence after admitting posting an online rant about migrants hours after killer Axel Rudakubana murdered three young girls on July 29 last year.
The former childminder deleted the post after four hours, but was arrested in August and pleaded guilty to a charge of inciting racial hatred in October.
On Tuesday, her appeal against her sentence was refused by three Court of Appeal judges, meaning she faces serving another eight months behind bars.
But, in a sign of hope for the 42-year-old, her case has now been raised with the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to The Telegraph.
It came after political commentator and Trump ally Charlie Kirk was made aware of Connolly's ordeal after a visit to the UK and vowed to get the US State Department involved in the process.
Appearing on GB News earlier this week, Kirk said: 'I am going to try and get the US State Department involved.
'I'm going to bring this up to Marco Rubio. I'm going to send him a text,' he added.
Kirk had been in the UK for a debate at the Oxford Union on Monday when the case of Mrs Connolly was raised.
'As of today, Lucy Connolly is going to jail for two-and-a-half years in this country for a social media post that she apologised for and deleted… That is not a free speech battle at all', he said during the debate.
'You should be allowed to say outrageous things. You should be allowed to say contrarian things. Free speech is a birthright that you gave us, and you guys decided not to codify it and now it's – poof! – it is basically gone.'
Kirk appeared on GB News the next day when the Court of Appeal announced it had thrown out Mrs Connolly's case.
He said: 'I am going to try and get the US State Department involved. I don't know what their bandwidth is here.
'I'm sorry, speaking as a citizen not on behalf of the US government, is this a way that a liberal democracy and ally of the United States acts?
Kirk continued: 'I just find it so outrageous that she is now going to jail for two and a half years for a deleted social media post that she apologised for. As you guys (the UK) have birthed free speech to the world, you are now becoming a totalitarian country.
'I'm going to bring this up to Marco Rubio. I'm going to send him a text. This should be mentioned. It's not new.'
Mrs Connolly deleted her post and blamed it on 'a moment of extreme outrage and emotion' when she was acting on 'false and malicious' information
Mrs Connolly, 42, had appealed against her sentence at the Royal Courts of Justice, describing how news of the Southport murders had triggered her anxiety caused when her baby son, Harry, died as the result of a hospital blunder 13 years earlier.
Her tweet, viewed 310,000 times before she deleted it three-and-a-half hours later, read: '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.'
There was serious violent unrest across Britain following the Southport murders.
After Connolly's appeal was dismissed on Tuesday, her husband said: 'Lucy posted one nasty tweet when she was upset and angry about three little girls who were brutally murdered in Southport.
'She realised the tweet was wrong and deleted it within four hours. That did not mean Lucy was a "far right thug".'
Mr Connolly said his wife's incarceration at HMP Drake Hall, Staffordshire – nine months so far - had been 'very hard, particularly on our 12-year-old girl'.
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned Britain was 'losing its reputation for free speech' over people being arrested by police 'simply for something we say'.
Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick asked: 'How on earth can you spend longer in prison for a tweet than violent crime?'
'Shoplifters with hundreds of prior convictions have avoided prison, a domestic abuser with 52 prior offences got off with just a suspended sentence, as did a paedophile with 110,000 indecent images of children.'
And Toby Young, the general secretary of the Free Speech Union, asked 'how can it be right for Lucy to have been condemned to spend more than two-and-a-half years in jail for a single tweet when members of grooming gangs who plead guilty to the sexual exploitation of children get lower sentences?'
He said: 'Lucy should be at home with her 12-year-old daughter and husband, not rotting in jail.'
It is expected that she will not be released before she has completed two fifths of her sentence, which will be in August.
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