Three men attempted suicide after woman, 22, falsely accused them of rape and pretended she was grooming gang victim
THREE men attempted suicide after a woman falsely accused them of rape as she pretended to be a victim of a grooming gang.
Eleanor Williams, 22, was found guilty of eight counts of perverting the course of justice in January.
She spun a web of lies which saw innocent men accused of rape and sent to prison.
Williams claimed she had been used for sex “for years” by an Asian gang who drugged her, assaulted her and threatened her with weapons.
She appeared at Preston Crown Court today for sentencing where victims Mohammed Ramzan, Jordan Trengove and Oliver Gardner read out statements about how she ruined their lives.
Mohammed, a business owner who was accused of grooming Williams, told the court her allegations had made his life “hell on earth”.
Speaking from the witness box in tears, he said he attempted to take his own life two weeks after his arrest.
Mohammed said: “I still bear the scars to this day.
“I have had countless death threats made over social media from people all over the world because of what they thought I was involved in.”
Williams was just 19 at the time when she used fake social media profiles, texted and even battered herself with a hammer.
The self-inflicted injuries were all part of a ploy to convince her hometown of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, where she alleged the fake grooming gang operated.
Pictures of her blackened face were posted to her Facebook in May 2020 and shared more than 100,000 times.
In a statement read to the court, victim Jordan said the word “rapist” had been spray painted across his house after the post was made.
Williams told cops he attacked her before raping her.
The innocent man spent 73 days in prison where he was forced to share a cell with a convicted sex offender.
Jordan said: “Things had calmed down a bit until the Facebook post in 2020.
“This made things even worse for me. There were big protests and marches in Barrow.
“The lowest point was when I tried to end my life in August 2020.”
‘PACK OF LIES’
Williams didn’t stop there with her accusations.
She then went on to say Oliver, who she met in the city centre, also sexually assaulted her.
In court today he explained how he tried to end his life following Williams’ disturbing accusations.
Oliver then had to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
He said: “It was just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“This whole period in my life has been totally overwhelming.”
In a statement, Superintendent Matthew Pearman said Williams’ Facebook post saw an “unprecedented outcry on social media within the town of Barrow”.
He said: “Barrow had not seen such public displays of mass anger for over 30 years.”
It also sparked demonstrations in the town and saw EDL founder Tommy Robinson visit to “investigate” the claims.
A jury at Preston Crown Court saw through Williams’ lies earlier this year.
The trial, which began in October last year, heard Williams had accused a number of men of rape dating back to 2017.
She told cops she had been raped and drugged since the age of 12 and had been trafficked to Ibiza and Amsterdam.
It was also alleged Williams sent messages to herself and made them appear to be from traffickers.
And in other cases manipulated real people to send messages which she then said were from her abusers.
The jury was told some of the people she made allegations about were real, while others, the prosecution claimed, did not exist.
During her evidence, Williams denied telling a “pack of lies”.
Asked about her Facebook post, she said: “I wanted people to know what was going on in Barrow, still is going on.”
She pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to one count of perverting the course of justice.
A genuine victim of sexual abuse in Rotherham ‘Elizabeth’, told The Sun Online she suspected Williams’ story was fabricated.
She explained: “After Rochdale and Rotherham our first instinct should be to believe, but as a genuine victim of grooming it just felt wrong.
“It was because her injuries were so extreme.
“I’ve been in the hands of a Pakistani grooming gang, and I was never, ever beaten.
“Why would they do that? It makes no sense because with injuries like that she’d be no use to them.
“They just wouldn’t be able to feed her to the perverts who’d normally use her.”
Williams is expected to be handed her sentence on Tuesday.
If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please call the Samaritans for free on 116123.