Lucy Connolly: Northampton 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, appearing via videolink from HMP Peterborough, 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.
She published a post on her X account, which she later deleted, 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 wrote 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 Muslim 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.
Rioting broke out in Southport (pictured) then across the UK after the fatal stabbing of three girls. Pic: PA
Connolly, from Northampton, later apologised for acting on “false and malicious” information and appeared to have subsequently deleted her X account.
She is the wife of Conservative West Northamptonshire councillor Raymond Connolly.
Speaking outside the court, he said he was “relieved” it was over as it had been “traumatic” for his wife and three children.
Mr Connolly said she was “an upset housewife” and “just a middle aged mother” who got dragged into the situation by misinformation spreading online.
“The stuff I hear is not really Lucy, she’s probably the opposite of what she’s having to admit to but she knows she’s overstepped the mark and there’s consequences for it,” he said.
“Hopefully she’ll be able to learn from this and move on with her life.”
Mr Connolly added that their son had died so when his wife sees any child get harmed “she will kick off”.
And he said she feels the “Tory tag” is unfair but “she will cope with whatever they throw at her, she’s got strong resilience, she’ll come back a bigger person”.
Their son, Harry, died aged 19 months in 2012 from dehydration after a series of basic errors by NHS medics, an inquest found.
His parents took the toddler to hospital with severe diarrhoea and vomiting, where he was wrongly diagnosed with a stomach upset and sent home before they returned two days later and medical staff turned them away.
Then a GP failed to diagnose the real problem and Mr Connolly woke up at 4am to Harry not breathing.
Elsie Dot Stancombe, Alice Dasilva Aguiar and Bebe King were killed in the attack. Pic: Merseyside Police
People accused of violence or inciting violence during the riots have been fast tracked through the justice system.
In Manchester, the sentencing of a 12-year-old, who cannot be named due to his age, twice involved in the violence was adjourned because his mother has gone on holiday to Ibiza.
District Judge Joanne Hirst told Manchester Magistrates’ Court she was “frankly astonished” that the boy’s mother had decided to fly abroad for a five-day sunshine break, with her son due in court having admitted two counts of violent disorder.
The mother has been issued with a parental summons to appear before the court when the judge passes sentence on 11 September.
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The boy, who was accompanied by his uncle, earlier admitted being part of a mob that attacked a bus outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in Manchester on 31 July.
Days later he was part of a group filmed kicking the windows of a vape shop and throwing a missile at a police van.
A group of investors with cryptocurrency custody and trading firm Bakkt Holdings filed a class-action lawsuit alleging false or misleading statements and a failure to disclose certain information.
Lead plaintiff Guy Serge A. Franklin called for a jury trial as part of a complaint against Bakkt, senior adviser and former CEO Gavin Michael, CEO and president Andrew Main, and interim chief financial officer Karen Alexander, according to an April 2 filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The group of investors allege damages as the result of violations of US securites laws and a lack of transparency surrounding its agreement with clients: Webull and Bank of America (BoA).
April 2 complaint against Bakkt and its executives. Source: PACER
The loss of Bank of America and Webull will result “in a 73% loss in top line revenue” due to the two firms making up a significant percentage of its services revenue, the investor group alleges in the lawsuit. The filing stated Webull made up 74% of Bakkt’s crypto services revenue through most of 2023 and 2024, and Bank of America made up 17% of its loyalty services revenue from January to September 2024.
Related: Bakkt names new co-CEO amid re-focus on crypto offerings
Bakkt disclosed on March 17 that Bank of America and Webull did not intend to renew their agreements with the firm ending in 2025. The announcement likely contributed to the company’s share price falling more than 27% in the following 24 hours. The investors allege Bakkt “misrepresented the stability and/or diversity of its crypto services revenue” and failed to disclose that this revenue was “substantially dependent” on Webull’s contract.
“As a result of Defendants’ wrongful acts and omissions, and the precipitous decline in the market value of the Company’s securities, Plaintiff and other Class members have suffered significant losses and damages,” said the suit.
Other law offices said they were investigating Bakkt for securities law violations, suggesting additional class-action lawsuits may be in the works. Cointelegraph contacted Bakkt for a comment on the lawsuit but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
Prices affected by Trump Media reports
Bakkt’s share price surged roughly 162% in November 2024 after reports suggested that then-US President-elect Donald Trump’s media company was considering acquiring the firm. As of April 2025, neither company has officially announced a deal.
Shares in Bakkt (BKKT) were $8.15 at the time of publication, having fallen more than 36% in the previous 30 days.
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The new trade tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump may place added pressure on the Bitcoin mining ecosystem both domestically and globally, according to one industry executive.
While the US is home to Bitcoin (BTC) mining manufacturing firms such as Auradine, it’s still “not possible to make the whole supply chain, including materials, US-based,” Kristian Csepcsar, chief marketing officer at BTC mining tech provider Braiins, told Cointelegraph.
On April 2, Trump announced sweeping tariffs, imposing a 10% tariff on all countries that export to the US and introducing “reciprocal” levies targeting America’s key trading partners.
Community members have debated the potential effects of the tariffs on Bitcoin, with some saying their impact has been overstated, while others see them as a significant threat.
Tariffs compound existing mining challenges
Csepcsar said the mining industry is already experiencing tough times, pointing to key indicators like the BTC hashprice.
Hashprice — a measure of a miner’s daily revenue per unit of hash power spent to mine BTC blocks — has been on the decline since 2022 and dropped to all-time lows of $50 for the first time in 2024.
According to data from Bitbo, the BTC hashprice was still hovering around all-time low levels of $53 on March 30.
Bitcoin hashprice since late 2013. Source: Bitbo
“Hashprice is the key metric miners follow to understand their bottom line. It is how many dollars one terahash makes a day. A key profitability metric, and it is at all-time lows, ever,” Csepcsar said.
He added that mining equipment tariffs were already increasing under the Biden administration in 2024, and cited comments from Summer Meng, general manager at Chinese crypto mining supplier Bitmars.
Source: Summer Meng
“But they keep getting stricter under Trump,” Csepcsar added, referring to companies such as the China-based Bitmain — the world’s largest ASIC manufacturer — which is subject to the new tariffs.
Trump’s latest measures include a 34% additional tariff on top of an existing 20% levy for Chinese mining imports. In response, China reportedly imposed its own retaliatory tariffs on April 4.
BTC mining firms to “lose in the short term”
Csepcsar also noted that cutting-edge chips for crypto mining are currently massively produced in countries like Taiwan and South Korea, which were hit by new 32% and 25% tariffs, respectively.
“It will take a decade for the US to catch up with cutting-edge chip manufacturing. So again, companies, including American ones, lose in the short term,” he said.
Source: jmhorp
Csepcsar also observed that some countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States region, including Russia and Kazakhstan, have been beefing up mining efforts and could potentially overtake the US in hashrate dominance.
Related: Bitcoin mining using coal energy down 43% since 2011 — Report
“If we continue to see trade war, these regions with low tariffs and more favorable mining conditions can see a major boom,” Csepcsar warned.
As the newly announced tariffs potentially hurt Bitcoin mining both globally and in the US, it may become more difficult for Trump to keep his promise of making the US the global mining leader.
Trump’s stance on crypto has shifted multiple times over the years. As his administration embraces a more pro-crypto agenda, it remains to be seen how the latest economic policies will impact his long-term strategy for digital assets.
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Cryptocurrency exchange OKX is under renewed regulatory scrutiny in Europe after Maltese authorities issued a major fine for violations of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws.
Malta’s Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) fined Okcoin Europe — OKX’s Europe-based subsidiary — 1.1 million euros ($1.2 million) after detecting multiple AML failures on the platform in the past, the authority announced on April 3.
While admitting that OKX has significantly improved its AML policies in the past 18 months, the authority “could not ignore” its past compliance failures from 2023, “some of which were deemed to be serious and systematic,” the FIAU notice said.
OKX was among the first crypto exchanges to receive a license under Europe’s new Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation via its Malta hub in January 2025.
The news of the $1.2 million penalty in Malta came after Bloomberg in March reported that European Union regulators were probing OKX for laundering $100 million in funds from the Bybit hack.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou previously claimed that OKX’s Web3 proxy allowed hackers to launder about $100 million, or 40,233 Ether (ETH), from the $1.5 billion hack that occurred in February.
This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.
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