After posting photos of injuries she claimed were caused by beatings by an Asian grooming gang on social media in 2020, Eleanor Williams incited protests in her Cumbrian hometown of Barrow.
Eleanor Williams was later found guilty on nine charges of perverting the course of justice. At Preston Crown Court, the judge, Mr. Justice Altham, sentenced her and referred to her accusations as "complete fiction."
Alleged Assault on Eleanor Williams
Eleanor Williams's allegations during the lockdown in May 2020 became viral after she posted photos of herself on Facebook covered with shocking injuries. She claimed that "evil yet clever" Asian males, especially Pakistani businessmen, had forced her to attend "sex parties" and beaten her.
The claims quickly spread outside of Cumbria and gave rise to the global campaign for justice for Ellie, which has more than 100,000 Facebook members.
Williams accused three men of fake rape. Jordan Trengove spent 73 days behind bars on remand after Williams falsely accused him of drugging and raping her and using a knife to her throat.
But Williams reserved her accusations for a Barrow businessman, Mohammed Ramzan, who, according to Williams, was the leader of an international grooming gang who had sex with her when she was 12 or 13 years old before using her and dozens of other girls around north-west England and abroad.
Trengove, Gardner, and Ramzan all claimed that being falsely accused led them to attempt suicide.
In an interview, Jordan Trengove detailed how his life was destroyed after being accused of rape.
Eleanor Williams’s Post-Impact on Barrow Town
In 2020, Cumbria police identified 151 crimes associated with the case, including harassing and threatening communications as well as public order and property damage offenses. In Barrow that summer, hate crimes soared.
Williams insisted on her innocence in a letter to the judge, but she also expressed remorse and "devastation" over how Barrow was impacted by her Facebook post.
"I’m not saying I’m guilty but I know I have done wrong on some of this and I’m sorry. I’m devastated at the trouble that has been caused in Barrow. If I knew what consequences would have come from that status I never would have posted it."
Williams, according to the judge, held only a limited amount of blame for the conflicts her Facebook post caused in the town. "Some community impact was foreseeable," he said. But he said the consequences of her lies for the criminal justice system were far-reaching, adding: "There is a risk that genuine victims will be reluctant as a result of this to come forward."
Eleanor Williams Was Found Guilty
A forensic pathologist found that Williams used a hammer that she had recently purchased from Tesco to inflict all of those wounds on herself.
Furthermore, during the period that Williams claimed she got assaulted, police made inquiries and found she had traveled alone to the seaside town and stayed in a hotel, where she later watched YouTube in her room after purchasing a pot noodle from a local shop.
In January, Eleanor Williams was found guilty on nine charges of perverting the course of justice. She was sentenced at Preston Crown Court by Mr. Justice Altham, who called her accusations "complete fiction."
As a result of her false accusations against the three men, Eleanor Williams has been sentenced to prison for eight-and-a-half years.
Misbar’s Sources
