Lucy Connolly, the 41 year old mother who was sentenced to 31 months in Durance vile over a X post during last summer’s unrest, has been released from prison.
Her case has been at the centre of free speech debate ever since her conviction.
The Prime Minister has faced endless accusations of two tier justice and politicisation of the judicial system since her sentencing.
The accusations escalated after Labour Councillor Ricky Jones, who had called for far-right activists’ throats to be cut at an anti-racism rally, was found not guilty of encouraging violent disorder by a jury.
Jacob Rees-Mogg explained the difference between Lucy Connolly’s and Ricky Jones’s cases
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GB NEWS
This is the key: Mr Jones’s case had a jury, and Lucy Connolly’s did not.
Juries were right not to convict Mr Jones. They have in any event historically been reluctant to convict in cases that seem political, so I doubt one would have convicted Lucy Connolly.
Mr Jones was charged with encouraging violent disorder, whereas Mrs Connolly was convicted of inciting racial hatred.
The Attorney General Lord Hermer personally approved the charge against her.
When the riots started to erupt following the Southport attacks, the Prime Minister was quick to encourage the fast track of convictions for rioters.
But where was the Reverend Starmer when three women who displayed paraglider symbols on their backs during a pro-Palestine protest following October 7th avoided prison sentences?
The outcome of these trials is not an example of two tier justice, it is an example of how the politicisation of the judicial system jeopardises the right to trial by jury, which was affirmed as early as in the laws of King Æthelred, and reconfirmed in Magna Carta: “judicium parium suorum” – that is to say judgement of his peers.
Lucy Connolly was in my view quite wrongly held on remand for 72 days by order of her honour judge Rebecca Crane, when there was no discernible risk either of her absconding or interfering with witnesses.
Holding her on remand COULD HAVE had the effect of pressuring her into pleading guilty, because the backlog in the court system meant that somebody who protested her innocence MIGHT BE kept on remand awaiting trial for longer than the sentence that would be applied if she were to plead guilty.
Thus her lawyer encouraged her to plead guilty, which was de facto a plea bargain, which is not allowed in this country.
The scandal of Lucy Connolly’s treatment is not the fault of a jury – but rather the lack of one, as a result of the politicisation of an independent judicial system.