Lucy Connolly appeal rejected

[WitchesCauldron]

Let me get out my tiny violin. Just because she's sorry now doesn't change the fact she's a racist who incited violence

on the one hand I agree with you but then I think about Huw Edward’s walking about Scott free and it feels two tier again

Right, so I've found a transcript of this 2013 article.

Seems ridiculous on the face of it the Judge is at the same time clear that the offence took place and that Rashid could not be unaware this was illegal, but also expressing concern that sending him to prison would not be appropriate given the reports stressing his immaturity and naivety.

Having said that, there will be information in reports that does not reach public domain, and we simply do not have all the facts available to the judge.

There are also undoubtedly examples of Judges simply showing poor judgement when it comes to sentencing, but there are mechanisms in place to correct that where and when necessary.

This is also a trial from 2013, so I doubt it would have been forefront in the minds of either Lucy Connolly or the thugs setting fire to hotels in the summer of 2024.

Yes, there are undoubtedly issues with public perception of fairness of sentencing in the UK, but again, the fact that some sentences might reasonably be perceived as too lenient has no relevance whatsoever to Lucy Connolly's particular "predicament". She admitted to Inciting Racial Hatred, and given both the background and subsequent events, a sentence which will see her out of prison in under 18 months seems perfectly appropriate, verging toward lenient.

We're more than 10 years on from when Sally Bercow found out the hard way that saying something in a Tweet is not some magic protected environment.

In her case it was a civil action for libel by Lord McAlpine, for Tweeting merely "Why is Lord McAlpine trending? innocent face".

Bercow lost. Sum of damages settlement undisclosed, but McAlpine had been asking for £50K.

The judge stated: "One hopes Twitter users are beginning to learn what a powerful and potentially dangerous weapon they have at their fingertips. A tweet is more like a broadcast than an email and is subject to the law of libel in the same way."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McAlpinevBercow

This happened in 2012 under a Tory Prime Minister to the wife of a Tory MP who'd become Speaker of the HoC, for those who attempt to make everything about party politics.

I don't think the current wife of a Tory politician who has said something vastly more harmful on Xwitter can reasonably claim not to know she was publishing her exhortations to violence to a potentially vast audience.

Ok, well, the headline points are that because he said he’d been taught that ‘women are no more worthy than a lollipop that has been dropped on the ground’ and were therefore acceptable objects for abuse, and since the judge concluded that he was ‘naive and inexperienced’ with regard to sex and that since he was ‘not assertive’ jail might do him ‘damage’ he was not sentenced to jail despite (at 18) having had sex with a 13 year old girl he had previously communicated with online. Notably, his admission that he held profoundly misogynist attitudes was considered to be a mitigating, not an aggravating, factor.

What are you on about?

You agreed with someone who said she should have a telling off over a cup of tea. She pleaded guilty to incitement after saying that people should be burnt alive.

It's not me who's ridiculous.

I had a Google and it relates to a case in 2013. Bloody awful decision by the judge:

"Addressing Rashid, the judge said: ‘I accept this was a case where the girl was quite willing to have sexual activity with you. But the law is there to protect young girls, even though they are perfectly happy to engage in sexual activity.’"

Victim blaming at its finest.

It is an example. More recent instances might be the fact that some of the members of grooming gangs have received lighter sentences than Connolly. It doesn’t matter that she wasn’t likely to have been thinking of this specific case. What matters is that the public regularly sees that it’s ok to carry signs saying ‘decapitate TERFs’ or to exhort crowds, as a convicted violent criminal, to ‘punch a TERF’, or as a popular band or a Labour councillor to urge homicidal violence against Tory MPs, because the law does nothing. The public also sees that mobile phone and bike thefts and burglaries go uninvestigated, and that men convicted of creating sexual images of minors and of raping children escape prison for any number of reasons. Yet tweet something hideous and stupid on the wrong side of the political debate and the book is thrown at otherwise law abiding people. Can you really not see that, all put together, this engenders a feeling of distrust, misplaced priorities in law enforcement, and, at worst, politicised prosecution and sentencing?

Yet tweet something hideous and stupid on the wrong side of the political debate and the book is thrown at otherwise law abiding people

Well this isn't what happened in the Lucy Connelly case, is it?

It was a hideous decision. The judge essentially said that she had groomed him rather than the other way round. More or less the same prejudice that emerged repeatedly in investigations into how grooming gangs have been permitted to operate almost unchecked.

I don't disagree, but I don't think it has relevance to the Connelly case.

Oh I can see why that might engender those feelings, I just do not agree that the feelings are actually a reflection of reality, or that they in any way indicate Lucy Connolly is the victim of an unfair system or a "political prisoner", as has been suggested by some of the more idiotic element voicing their displeasure.

What matters is that the public regularly sees that it’s ok to carry signs saying ‘decapitate TERFs’ or to exhort crowds, as a convicted violent criminal, to ‘punch a TERF’, or as a popular band or a Labour councillor to urge homicidal violence against Tory MPs, because the law does nothing

The law can't "do anything" if nobody complains, and the law can't "do anything" when it's not clear that a criminal offence has actually taken place. None of that makes any of these things "ok", and if that's what people are reading into the fact that certain events have not resulted in a prosecution, then I see that as a form of ignorance because it's highly selective, and demonstrates that the individual doesn't really understand what they are complaining about.

She certainly tweeted something hideous and stupid. And I’ve seen plenty of hideous and stupid things tweeted about raping or attacking TERFs, yet these have generally not led to prosecutions, let alone hefty jail sentences. Online utterances are not consistently policed and I think there ought to be a review of the laws and sebtencing guidelines around social media.

Was this case ever reviewed by AGO or referred to ULS?

Either way, it's suggestive of the fact that regardless of outward appearances, there is something pertinent in those reports that the law accepts means the apparently light sentence is perfectly appropriate.

The Judge is supposed to pass what is a reasonable sentence based on all facts available to them. The judge will have had facts available which are not in public domain, so, regardless of the fact that you or I perceive this as unduly lenient, if there is no interest in a review or suggestion the sentence is inappropriate from ULS, then the only conclusion must be there is something the judge is privvy to that we are not.

Again, the same thing with your "punch TERFs" examples. Just because the public has a perception, does not mean that perception is accurate or informed.

Plenty of people have complained about the incitement to violence against TERFs and when a band encourages its audience to murder Tory MPs there should not need to be a ‘complaint’. If incitement to violence is in fact a crime it’s not clear why no action has been taken in these cases.

There literally has to be a complaint. This is how policing works.

If nobody ever makes a complaint, then there is an assumption, understandably, that no offence has taken place.

People make a complaint in the belief an offence may have occurred, the police then investigate, compile evidence, and send a file to Crown Office/CPS/Procurator who then decide whether there are grounds for a prosecution and whether it is in public interest to do so, and whether or not a prosecution is likely to result in a conviction.

Without the complaint, it is impossible for any of the subsequent events to occur.

Evidently you are comfortable with the language the judge used about a 13 year old girl’s willingness to have sex. I’m not. I don’t know whether it was ever brought to review, so I can’t comment on that. Perhaps no pressure was brought to cause it to come to review. But as recent cases have shown, as in the instance of the grooming gang perpetrator whose original sentencing judge showed leniency because the perpetrator was now ‘involved in his local mosque’, it’s not always the case that judges reach ‘perfect appropriate’ conclusions. That one was brought to review after pressure from Robbie Moore and Robert Jenrick and the sentence was increased. So no, judges don’t always get it right and it is perfectly reasonable for the public to notice that.

Has there been some progress I've missed in the Kneecap case? (There might be.)

The last I heard (1 May) is that there is an active investigation into them by counter-terrorism police.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyqe3v5jjdo

Again I don't disagree. Policing needs to evolve to meet the challenges.

But that doesn't change the facts of the case we are discussing. Connolly admitted she broke the law and received a sentence in accordance with the guidelines.

Evidently you are comfortable with the language the judge used about a 13 year old girl’s willingness to have sex

This is a bizarre conclusion.

For the record, no, I am not "comfortable" with the language the judge is reported to have used.

Well, as I said, plenty of people have lodged complaints about the threats to TERFs and often police have taken no action. Given the noise about it I dare say complaints were lodged about Kneecap. The police considered the Sarah Jane Baker ‘punch a TERF’ incident and calmly decided, eh, no biggy, a convicted violent criminal inciting a crowd of very angry people to attack women is probably fine and brought no action.

It’s not a bizarre conclusion. Your entire post was about how the judge has info we didn’t and therefore came to a ‘perfectly appropriare’ conclusion.

Again, you are making assertions based on nothing but your own perception.

Where did the local police state this was "no biggy" and "probably fine"?

Do you not think it's an order of magnitude more likely they concluded no criminal offence had actually taken place, or that if they did conclude there was an offence, the CO decided, for whatever reason, that there was no reasonable prospect of a conviction?

Perhaps the police concluded it didn't merit a report and a Caution was appropriate.

Like I keep saying, people might well have "perceptions" of what happened, but that doesn't mean their perceptions are in any way reflective of reality. Same is true for those who think Lucy Connolly deserved nothing more than a stern talking to over a cup of tea.

Yes, that’s true. I’m not sure she was well advised to plead guilty, though, and given the very low threshold for being required to pay for your own defence, the astonishing costs of defending oneself in court, and the substantial punishment inherent in being remanded over a long period in custody whilst awaiting trial, whether she could really be said to have confessed without pressure.

I made no comment about the judges language regarding the 13 year old's willingness at all, so yes, it is an utterly bizarre conclusion for you to assert I approve of it, given you have no basis for that conclusion.

You are also omitting entirely the part whereby I've explained that since not only the judge, but all the mechanisms designed to respond to unduly lenient sentences also appear to have taken no issue with this sentence, then it seems reasonable to conclude that perhaps they are privvy to information you or I are not, and therefore you and I are probably not best placed to decide the judge has actually screwed this one up.

Again, perceptions and reality are not one and the same thing

No charges were brought. There was, I believe, video evidence of the incident, certainly there were many eye witnesses, and there have been several cases of women at Let Women Speak and related events being physically assaulted or intimidated by trans rights activists. It is also commonly the case that violent written material directed at TERFs is paraded at events deemed by trans rights activists to be ‘transphobic’ and that violent language is regularly used online by the same group. Given these facts, and the background of the speaker, it is not implausible that this incitement to violence created a real risk of harm, and also that there was ample evidence that this had taken place and been intended to produce a violent effect. Perhaps this threat of violence did not meet a sufficient threshold: I don’t know. So yes, in one sense it’s about perception. But that’s the only mechanism by which any of us can form political opinions, so I’m afraid it’s going to have to do. Otherwise we all just have to accept that the police and the judiciary always get it right and are always impartial, when that’s never going to be completely true.