Lucy Connolly has condemned the three judges who dismissed her appeal against her 31-month jail sentence as "cruel and twisted". Ms Connolly appealed for early release after being locked up over a post she sent on X during the Southport riots last year.

Amid the riots, Ms Connolly took to X to rant: "Mass deportations now, set fire to all the f***ing hotels full of the b******s for all I care, while you're at it take the treacherous government and politicians with them." The post had 310,000 views before it was deleted. The judges claimed the sentence was fair and reasonable, despite serious criminals getting early release amid the ongoing prison space crisis.

Speaking to , Ms Connolly tore into the judges for their decision and said her daughter had been excited about the chance of her return home. Ms Connolly fumed: "Shame on them! Those three judges that were sitting there in court should be ashamed of themselves, they are cruel.

"Women here in jail, they have made mistakes and you listen to their stories and you think: 'You are poor, you are vulnerable, you didn't know better, you made really bad choices, you can be forgiven.'

"But those judges, intelligent men, they didn't make a mistake. It's cruel and twisted what they did.

"Absolute rotten b******s. Rotten, dictating b****d judges. They're keeping me away from my child. It's three more months without her, and her without me."

The Court of Appeal judges said the ground of Ms Connolly's appeal "was substantially based on a version of events put forward by the applicant which we have rejected".

Her husband, a councillor at the time, said after the appeal: "My wife has paid a very high price for making a mistake and today the court has shown her no mercy.

"Lucy posted one nasty tweet when she was upset and angry about three little girls who were brutally murdered in Southport.

"She realised the tweet was wrong and deleted it within four hours.

"My wife Lucy is a good person and not a racist. As a childminder, she took care of small children of African and Asian heritage. They loved Lucy as she loved them."

Speaking with Telegraph journalist Allison Phillips, Ms Connolly argued: "Whatever you think of what I did, I think 10 and a half months inside is long enough.

"It's political, I know that it is, but they're playing politics with a 12-year-old child.

She concluded: "I think this Government would keep me in for 100 years if they could."