Fantasist whose rape lies drove three men to brink of suicide jailed for 8½ years
A FANTASIST whose lies of being beaten and raped by a grooming gang drove three innocent men to the brink of suicide was jailed yesterday.
eleanor Williams, 22, sparked outrage after gruesome images of her bruised face and claims of abuse from a violent Asian group went viral.
Yet, as she was sentenced to eight-and-ahalf years, Williams’ full deviousness was revealed as CCTV showed her buying the hammer with which she would hit herself in the face to cause the injuries.
When she first made her claims in barrow-inFurness, public demonstrations were held in the Cumbrian town and businesses were daubed with racist abuse.
One man was locked up for ten weeks after she accused him of rape, while another faced lurid allegations that he made her work at a brothel in Amsterdam before selling her to another pimp.
Supporters of the Labour councillor’s daughter raised more than £20,000 through a slick social media campaign after the post was unwittingly shared by celebrities including Countdown presenter Rachel Riley.
but police had become suspicious of her story after discovering she had set up fake Snapchat accounts and sent messages to herself. Jailing her, the Honorary Recorder of Preston Judge Robert Altham told Williams her lies risked deterring ‘genuine victims’ from going to police fearing they would ‘not be believed’.
during the first Covid lockdown in May 2020, Williams was found by officers with injuries which she claimed were inflicted by the gang.
The following day the then-teenager shared images of her wounds in a Facebook post, saying she wanted to ‘raise awareness’ of the alleged grooming ring who were ‘mostly Pakistani men’.
The post was shared more than 100,000 times and prompted Tommy Robinson – founder of the far-Right english defence League – to come to barrow to ‘investigate’.
When police instead charged Williams, outraged supporters took part in demonstrations and Asian- owned businesses were attacked. but her trial heard the Snapchat account which Williams claimed was that of an Asian trafficker belonged in reality to a Tesco worker from essex who had never met her.
She claimed restaurateur Mohammed Ramzan had groomed her for sex from the age of 12, even selling her at auction for 25,000 euros (£22,000) after making her work at a brothel in Amsterdam.
Williams also alleged he had threatened to throw her in the sea during a ‘horrific’ trip to blackpool during which she was ‘pimped out’ to eight men.
However it emerged that during the alleged Amsterdam trip, Mr Ramzan had in fact been shopping at his local b&Q.
Meanwhile on the night of her alleged ordeal in the seaside town she instead stayed alone in a hotel after buying a Pot Noodle and spent the evening watching YouTube on her phone.
Williams was found guilty of eight counts of perverting the course of justice.
She pleaded guilty to a ninth count at an earlier hearing.
In the letter to the judge read in court yesterday, Williams said she would never have written her post had she known ‘ what consequences would have come’.
In a statement to her sentencing hearing at Preston Crown Court, Mr Ramzan said he had received ‘countless death threats’ because of her lies. He said he had tried to kill himself following his arrest. Judge Altham said there was no explanation for why Williams invented the allegations, which he described as ‘complete fiction’.
Afterwards Jordan Trengove, who was locked up after being falsely accused of rape by Williams, said he planned to take legal action against the police.
‘I don’t think the sentence is long enough, in my opinion, for what she’s done to us all,’ he added.
Mr Trengove said he also tried to
‘Sentence isn’t long enough for what she did’
end his life as a result of her lies, as did Oliver Gardner, who was accused of raping Williams after a chance encounter on a night out. Superintendent Matthew Pearman, of Cumbria Police, stressed that Williams’ allegations ‘could not have been taken any more seriously when she initially came forward’.
He said it had been a ‘dark period for barrow’ but urged anyone who had been a victim of sexual abuse to report it to police.