Lucy Connolly’s name is, of course, familiar to Daily Sceptic readers, as are the details of her treatment at the hands of the justice system. But I suspect that most people in this country were not aware of how she has been treated. Allison Pearson, writing in the Telegraph this weekend, has changed that. In an excellent, well-researched piece, Pearson describes Connolly’s family and young daughter, her background and the details of the tweet for which she was prosecuted (and entered a guilty plea). Lucy’s tweet was ugly. But defending speech rights often means defending the ugly.
The article also does an excellent job of describing the coercive use of remand which drove Lucy to plead guilty. From the moment of her arrest Lucy was held in custody. Ray Connolly, Lucy’s husband, who suffers with a serious blood disease, is described as having spoken to leading barristers who insisted that his wife should not plead guilty. Ray said: “If I could have got her round a table with those barristers, I’m sure she would have gone with ‘not guilty’.” Unfortunately Lucy had no chance of such a meeting. She was held on remand, surrounded by women waiting months for their trial. She said to her husband, “You just don’t know how long you’ll be here… I might not get to court until spring.”
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