Latest news with #DrHeneEnyi
Daily Mail
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Tory councillor's wife jailed for Southport tweet helped obtain British citizenship for family of Nigerian GP who hails her as the 'kindest British person I know'
The mother jailed for a racist tweet after the Southport massacre has been praised as 'the kindest British person I know' by a Nigerian GP. Childminder Lucy Connolly lost her appeal this week to be freed from a 31-month sentence for her online rant about migrants. Her Conservative councillor husband Ray Connolly said that his wife was 'a good person…not a far-right thug' but judges ruled the young mother must remain behind bars. And now Nigerian GP Dr Hene Enyi has added her voice of support for the childminder, who looked after her young daughter. Dr Enyi revealed Mrs Connolly had gone out of her way to help with her family's application for British citizenship, even providing character references. Dr Enyi said: 'Lucy is simply the loveliest, kindest British person I know. My mum and dad in Nigeria know all about her because I speak about her all the time. 'She was so good to us when we arrived here from Nigeria. She loved my daughter like her own child.' She told the Telegraph: 'We used to joke 'how do you make any money as a childminder?', because she was always buying gifts for the children. 'As well as my daughter she looked after children from Bangladesh and Pakistan. This is not a racist person who has anything against people from different races.' Mrs Connolly, 42, had appealed against her sentence at the Royal Courts of Justice, describing how news of the Southport murders of three children at a dance class 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 that makes me racist so be it.' There was serious violent unrest across Britain following the Southport murders. After three senior judges dismissed her appeal on Tuesday, saying the tweet represented 'an incitement to serious violence', 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?' saying that '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.
Telegraph
22-05-2025
- Telegraph
Lucy Connolly is no racist – she helped me become a British citizen
Dr Hene Enyi said the childminder had gone out of her way to help with her family's application for British citizenship, even providing character references. She told The Telegraph: 'Lucy is simply the loveliest, kindest British person I know. My mum and dad in Nigeria know all about her because I speak about her all the time. 'She was so good to us when we arrived here from Nigeria. She loved my daughter like her own child. 'We used to joke 'how do you make any money as a child minder', because she was always buying gifts for the children. 'As well as my daughter she looked after children from Bangladesh and Pakistan. This is not a racist person who has anything against people from different races. 'She was so kind when we needed a character reference for our citizenship and went out of her way to help us, even driving to our home to drop off the letters we needed.' 'My daughter loved being with her' Dr Enyi added: 'She started looking after my daughter in 2019 when she was aged one. When we moved to another house we were too far for Lucy to look after her every day but we used to go back to her during the holidays because my daughter loved being with her so much. 'I trusted her so much that once when I had a problem with childcare I let Lucy look after my daughter overnight. That is how much faith I had in her.' Dr Enyi said her daughter had been at Mrs Connolly's house when the police turned up to arrest her and her husband had to go and collect her in front of the officers. She said: 'My daughter was really upset because she could no longer see Lucy. We have since left Northampton so it has been a bit easier to explain why she cannot see her anymore, but it has been very difficult for her.' Dr Enyi said she put the offending tweet down to a momentary error of judgment, borne out of the grief she is still suffering following the loss of her own son. 'Error of judgment' She said: 'I knew that Lucy had lost a baby. She has a memorial every year and I have attended for the last two years. So when I saw the news about what had happened my first thought was that she had reacted to the events in Southport because of what had happened to her son. I was just so sad. 'I could understand why what had happened in Southport touched a nerve with Lucy given what she had gone through. 'But she realised quickly that what she had said was wrong and removed it. The punishment does not fit the crime. 'Lucy is not a racist person at all. It was an error of judgment that was caused by the loss of her own child. 'She pleaded guilty and has been punished enough. Her daughter needs her mum and she deserves to be back home. 'It is such a real shame that she has been scapegoated in this way.'
