Father-of-three jailed over ‘repulsive’ X post inciting attacks on asylum hotels

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

A father-of-three has been jailed after re-posting a tweet calling for attacks on asylum seekers originally written by the wife of a Tory councillor.

Tyler Kay, 26, was sentenced to 38 months’ imprisonment after using X, formerly Twitter, in the early hours to back calls to “set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the bastards”.

Kay was sentenced at Northampton Crown Court on Friday, two days after being arrested and a day after admitting a charge of publishing material intended to stir up racial hatred.

It emerged in court that Kay, of Ellfield Court, Northampton, copied and pasted part of a tweet originally posted on the day of the Southport knife killings by childminder Lucy Connolly, the partner of Conservative West Northamptonshire councillor Raymond Connolly.

Mrs Connolly, 41, was arrested and bailed on suspicion of inciting racial hatred and has since apologised for acting on “false and malicious” information.

In a now deleted post on her X account, Mrs Connolly, from Northampton, wrote: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the bastards for all I care… If that makes me racist, so be it.”

The court heard Kay copied, pasted and uploaded Mrs Connolly’s post at 12.27pm on Wednesday from a BBC News report and added the hashtags #standwithlucyconnolly #lucyconnolly #f***northamptonshirepolice #conservative #FaragesRiots #RiotsUK and #Northampton.

As well as a post which urged people to “mask up” during a protest targeting an immigration law firm, Kay tweeted to his 127 followers at 2.34am: “That’s 100% the plan, plus gloves. No car either so no number plate to trace and a change of clothes ready nearby.”

After being warned by another Twitter user that he could be jailed, Kay tweeted: “I can categorically tell you now, I will not be arrested by Northants Police.”

During the posts, Kay said he was a Reform voter, accused police of two-tier policing and told someone who said the screenshot and posts could land him in jail that they were delusional.

He also copied Northamptonshire Police into one of the messages after being warned he could face court action by another user.

Prosecutor Naeem Valli told the court that coverage of the riots in recent days had been “unavoidable” and the defendant “can only have known that his offending was part of a pattern.”

Defence lawyer Will Forber-Heyward said what Kay, who has a previous conviction for theft from his employer in 2020, had done was horrific but he had shown a degree of remorse.

Kay stands to lose his council accommodation by virtue of his conviction, Mr Forber-Heyward said.

During a two-hour hearing, Kay attempted to argue in the witness box that he was not racist and was “quite happy” to be part of a multi-cultural town.

He said of the post regarding hotel housing asylum seekers: “I disagreed with somebody (Mrs Connolly) being arrested for their opinion and so I copied and pasted the tweet into X – kind of as a protest.

“At the time I didn’t expect a lot to come of it.”

Wearing a red T-shirt, Kay looked tired and dishevelled as he was sentenced.

Passing sentence, Judge Adrienne Lucking KC told him: “You posted as you did because you thought there were no consequences for yourself from stirring up racial hatred in others.

“The overall tone of the posts clearly reveals your fundamentally racist mindset.

“I am sure that when you intentionally created the posts you intended that racial hatred would be stirred up by your utterly repulsive, racist and shocking posts that have no place in a civilised society.”

Judge Lucking rejected Kay’s claim that he had not intended to stir up race hate, ruling that he was “intelligent, articulate and media savvy”.

The judge told Kay: “You have attempted to portray yourself as naive.

“I am sure that you knew that what you were posting would stir up racial hatred in others. The sentence I will impose will be the least sentence commensurate with the seriousness of the offence.”

Commenting on the case, Detective Chief Superintendent Rich Tompkins said: “I hope this case sends a very clear message to people who think they can hide behind a screen and publish hateful, racially prejudiced posts without consequence.

“This case is not an example of preventing ‘freedom of speech’ as a small minority of people will claim.

“It is about standing up for what is right and protecting our communities from fear of violence. After all, freedom of speech is not freedom to spread racial hatred.

“This week, we have had some really positive engagements with communities across the county, most notably the gathering of people standing against racism in Northampton on Wednesday evening.

“We stand with our communities and will do everything we can to help them feel safe and protected from crime.”