Wife of Tory councillor arrested for racial hatred after calling for rioters to 'set fire to all migrant hotels'
7 August 2024, 07:10 | Updated: 7 August 2024, 07:29
The wife of a Tory councillor has been arrested for racial hatred after calling for rioters to 'set fire to all migrant hotels' on social media.
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Lucie Connolly, the wife of Tory councillor Raymond Connolly, made the remarks in a tweet hours after the death of three girls in a knife attack in Southport.
The incident has sparked riots across the country, with several hotels housing asylum seekers being targeted.
Ms Connolly, who is a childminder from Northamptonshire, said in a now-deleted tweet: "Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the b******* for all I care, while you're at it take the treacherous government and politicians with them.
"I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist, so be it."
She has since apologised for her comments, saying she acted on "false and malicious" information.
Read more: Named and shamed: Mugshots of rioters revealed as over 100 charged after violent disorder sweeps UK
Her husband, Tory councillor Raymond Connolly, said she had shared one "stupid, spur of the moment tweet out of frustration and quickly deleted it".
"She’s a good person and she’s not racist," he told the BBC.
"She’s got Somalian and Bangladeshi kids she looks after and she loves them like they’re her own."
Northamptonshire Police said a 41-year-old woman had been arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred.
In a Twitter update on Tuesday evening, Ms Connolly said: “I am someone who cares enormously about children and the similarity between those beautiful children who were so brutally attacked, and my own daughter, overwhelmed me with horror, but I should not have expressed that horror in the way that I did.
"This has been an invaluable lesson for me in realising how wrong and inaccurate things appearing on social media can be."
