Lucy Connolly is set to meet with members of Donald Trump\u2019s administration following her release from prison for inciting racial hatred.<\/p>\n
The former childminder told Dan Wootton on his YouTube show that US president\u2019s lawyers were \u201cvery interested in the way things are going in the UK\u201d and \u201ckeen to speak\u201d with her, adding they are \u201cbig advocates for free speech\u201d.<\/p>\n
The 42-year-old, speaking for the first time since her release, claims she was been made \u201c[Sir Keir] Starmer\u2019s political prisoner\u201d after being sentenced to 31 months in jail for stirring up racial hatred against asylum seekers on the day of the Southport murders. <\/p>\n
The case centred on her post on X that said: \u201cMass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the bastards for all I care \u2026 if that makes me racist so be it.\u201d <\/p>\n
Connolly, the wife of a Conservative councillor, had pleaded guilty to inciting racial hatred by publishing and distributing \u201cthreatening or abusive\u201d written material after her post was viewed 310,000 times.<\/p>\n
She served 40 per cent of her sentence, before being released on Thursday on licence.<\/p>\n
Lucy Connolly is set to meet representatives of Donald Trump\u2019s administration on Saturday (AP)Speaking to The Telegraph following her release, she said she made the post in a \u201cred mist\u201d fit of anger, before later deleting it after returning from a walk. Eight days later, she was arrested at her home and questioned by police.<\/p>\n
She claimed the authorities wanted to \u201chammer\u201d after she was refused bail and the Crown Prosecution Service released a statement that suggested she told officers in her police interview she did not like immigrants. <\/p>\n
A press release from the CPS after her guilty plea on September 2 included a quote from Frank Ferguson, head of the Crown Prosecution Service\u2019s Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Unit, which said: \u201cDuring police interview Lucy Connolly stated she had strong views on immigration, told officers she did not like immigrants and claimed that children were not safe from them.\u201d <\/p>\n
Connolly claimed her words were \u201cmassively twisted and used against me\u201d, and is now considering taking legal action, saying she didn\u2019t believe she would have had a fair trial had she pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n
Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice da Silva Aguiar were killed in Southport, an incident that triggered riots across the country (Merseyside Police\/PA) (PA Media)She said: \u201cI don\u2019t want to say too much because I need to seek legal advice on that, but I do think the police were dishonest in what they released and what they said about me, and I will be holding them to account for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also on Friday, she told Mr Wootton on his YouTube show that she was meeting representatives of the Trump administration on Saturday. Asked what she knew about the meeting, she said: \u201cNot much, just that they\u2019re very interested in the way things are going in the UK, and they are obviously big advocates for free speech, and their lawyers are keen to speak with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US State Department has previously accused the UK of having “significant human rights issues”, including restrictions on free speech.<\/p>\n
Connolly also said in her interview with The Telegraph she believed she had been targeted because her husband was a Conservative councillor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just a woman from Northampton living in a three-bed semi that worked as a childminder with a husband as an engineer,\u201d she said. \u201cOkay, he was a councillor. But that, people forget, that\u2019s almost like a second job.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis first job as an engineer, as a father, as a husband, we are nobody. We are not known to anybody. So I will never understand how it got to this.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s people that have done far worse and people wouldn\u2019t be able to name them, but they\u2019d know my name, and I just find it all really, really bizarre.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Northamptonshire Police spokesperson said: \u201cWe are aware of comments made by Lucy Connolly in an interview following her release from prison. We hope to contact Mrs Connolly in the coming days to understand the issues she has raised around Northamptonshire Police.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lucy Connolly is set to meet with members of Donald Trump\u2019s administration following her release from prison for inciting racial hatred. The former childminder told Dan Wootton on his YouTube show that US president\u2019s lawyers were \u201cvery interested in the way things are going in the UK\u201d and \u201ckeen to speak\u201d with her, adding they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n