WATCH: Barrister blasts 'extreme' dismissal of Lucy Connolly's sentencing appeal

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Barrister Steven Barrett has declared he is "embarrassed for his country" after jailed mother Lucy Connolly had her 31-month jail sentence appeal dismissed by the court.Connolly was imprisoned last October after posting on social media that hotels housing asylum seekers should be "set on fire".FULL STORY HERE.

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00:00Lucy Connolly has failed in her appeal against a sentence for inciting racial hatred.

00:05The wife of a conservative councillor was jailed for an incredible 31 months last October

00:10after calling for mass deportations and for migrant hotels to be burnt down for all she cared

00:16in the wake of the Southport attacks last summer when, of course, three girls were brutally murdered

00:21at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party.

00:24Well, we can now speak with the barrister and the writer Stephen Barrett.

00:28Stephen, welcome to the show.

00:30A case I know you've presided over and thought deep and long and hard about.

00:35A lot of people saying today this is a clear indication of two-tier justice.

00:41Throwing the book at somebody to teach them a lesson.

00:45What's your take?

00:47Well, it's very difficult to avoid that conclusion.

00:50The judges went to a particularly, I think, extreme degree to try and paint Lucy Connolly

00:59as racist.

01:00They highlight two of her tweets, which don't strike me as particularly racist.

01:07They dismiss out of hand every piece of evidence that she gave.

01:12Now, remember that she's a woman of good character prior to this one incident.

01:17She's not charged with a dishonesty offence.

01:19Nobody thinks that she lies.

01:21So why her evidence was dismissed so categorically is beyond me.

01:27They are hagiographic, which means just so I'm not being elitist here,

01:33it means they were ridiculously falling over themselves to praise the duty solicitor,

01:38who any lawyer in their right mind is, it's very difficult to see why she pled guilty.

01:49And they put an awful lot of emphasis on that, despite the fact that she's a stay-at-home mum

01:54who is a childminder to children of mixed races, which obviously should indicate that she's not,

02:00in fact, unto mention, which is how they effectively treat her.

02:03They have basically deemed her racist and they've decided that that is the ultimate moral sin.

02:09Perhaps it is in their world.

02:11I remember when I was a child, the Labour Party used to rile against what it saw as the Conservative

02:16establishment.

02:17Well, the Conservative establishment is quite clearly dead.

02:20We now have a Labour-supporting establishment.

02:22And if this is their inherent moral evil, that the minute you can get painted as a racist,

02:28even though you're obviously not a racist, you become a second-rate citizen.

02:31I note that a Palestinian man who came here illegally was given nine months for supporting

02:38Hamas, a terrorist-prescribed organisation, and for calling for the death and the killing

02:42of Jews, which seems to me far more serious, far more intense than this mother could have

02:49ever intended.

02:50They dismiss, Martin, the idea that the words that she used were not incitement.

02:55Now, I don't think that they were incitement.

02:57So actually, on a technical level of their ability to interpret words, I'm disappointed

03:03in these judges.

03:05I'm disappointed in what I see as their basic ability.

03:08They simply dismiss that out of hand.

03:10They don't really explain why it's a very declarative judgment.

03:14I don't think they explain themselves at all.

03:15They hide behind the modern technique of writing a judgment, which is to put in endless, entirely

03:21pointless words that nobody needs to do.

03:23If I were a law student now, Martin, I'd be in utter despair.

03:27You get to page...

03:29Let me just check, Martin.

03:30I don't want to mislead anybody.

03:32You get to...

03:33Oh, it doesn't have page numbers.

03:34But you get to about paragraph 55 before anything of any importance is said.

03:38The entire rest of it is presumably just a cudgel to beat everybody into submission to

03:43make sure that journalists don't point out that these people don't actually have very

03:46sophisticated reasoning.

03:47I am embarrassed and ashamed for my country, Martin.

03:51This is patently ridiculous.

03:53We have become a country full of laws and no justice.

03:57I don't think anybody of any political persuasion wants this mum languishing in prison, yet there

04:03she languished.

04:04If the judges feel that by taking three working days and a weekend to write this utter...

04:10I shouldn't say a word that would embarrass me later, but it's not impressive.

04:16If they think that that vindicates them in any way, then they are much mistaken.

04:20I am disgraced on their behalf.

04:23I am embarrassed to have them as members of the judiciary for my country.

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