UK

Lucy Connolly: Childminder married to Tory councillor pleads guilty to stirring up racial hatred

Lucy Connolly: Childminder married to Tory councillor pleads guilty to stirring up racial hatred

The wife of a Tory councillor has pleaded guilty to publishing written material to stir up racial hatred following the Southport stabbings.

Childminder Lucy Connolly admitted making the post about asylum seekers at Northampton Crown Court after she was previously arrested and re-arrested in the first half of August.

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She published a now-deleted post on her X account, which read: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f*****g hotels full of the bastards for all I care… If that makes me racist, so be it.”

Connolly made the post on the day of the knife attack in Southport, Merseyside, when a group of children attending a Taylor Swift-themed dance class were attacked.

False information claiming the attacker was a Syrian asylum seeker spread online and led to riots across the UK.

Three young girls were killed in the attack on 29 July, while eight other children and two adults were injured.

Connolly later apologised for acting on “false and malicious” information and appeared after to have deleted her X account.

She is the wife of Conservative West Northamptonshire councillor Raymond Connolly.

The childminder had been remanded in custody ahead of her Crown Court appearance on Monday.

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