Tory councillor's wife jailed for racist Southport tweet is being ‘mistreated' in prison, Reform's Richard Tice claims
Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice says Lucy Connolly has been handcuffed and stripped of her privileges by prison officers.
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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."
41-year-old childminder 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."
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.
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