Woman guilty of making false allegations of gang rape

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A woman who falsely claimed she was the victim of an Asian cosmetics ring has been found guilty of perverting the course of justice.

Eleanor Williams, 22, posted photos of her injuries and an account of being groomed, trafficked and beaten, to Facebook in May 2020, in a post that has been shared more than 100,000 times.

A jury at Preston Crown Court found her guilty of eight counts of acts intended to pervert the course of justice.

It took the jury three hours and 29 minutes to reach their verdicts after the 10-week trial.

Williams, of Tisdale Street, Barrow, stared straight ahead as the provisions returned.

She pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to one count of perverting the course of justice, which involved contacting her sister and mother with a request that they take gavel to her lawyer.

Honorary Registrar of Preston Justice Robert Altham has postponed sentencing to 13 and 14 March.

He said before the trial that he had been given information about the community impact of Williams’ work: “This community influence was said to include some element of tension within the Barrow community.

“It included, as far as I can remember, at least one family who had moved from the Barrow area and damaged various businesses.”

The Facebook post sparked demonstrations in her hometown of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, and led to former English Defense League founder Tommy Robinson visiting the town to “investigate” the allegations.

Detective Superintendent Dave Stocker, of Cumbria Police, said Williams’ crimes were “a far cry from victimless”.

He said, “Williams has provided overwhelming evidence when reporting her abuse, while her Facebook posts have caused an uproar in the community, heightened community tensions and negatively affected trust in the police.”

Williams’ trial, which began in October last year, has heard she accused a number of men of rape, dating back to 2017, and told police an Asian gang set up and trafficked her.

On May 19, 2020, she was found by officers near her home on Walney Island with injuries she alleged were inflicted on her by the gang after she was taken to a house in town and raped.

But the prosecution alleged that Williams injured herself with a hammer found near her blood.

Jonathan Sandiford KC, the public prosecutor, said the incident was “the end” of a series of false allegations made by Williams.

In his closing speech, he told the jury: “The defendant goes online to her social media contacts and virtually finds random names online that she submits as victims of trafficking or perpetrators.”

Williams allegedly sent some of the messages to herself, making it appear as if they were from traffickers or fellow victims, and in other cases she manipulated real people into sending messages which she then said were from her abusers.

The jury was told that some of the people she testified were true allegations, while the prosecution claimed that others did not exist.

The court heard a Snapchat account that Williams claimed belonged to an Asian trader named Shaggy Wood was an account of a man called Liam Wood, who lives in Essex, works for Tesco, and believes Williams is a friend who lives in Portsmouth and was planning to visit him.

During the trial, the jury heard evidence from her employer, Mohamed Ramadan, who Williams claims groomed her since she was 12 years old.

Under cross-examination, Mr. Ramadan asked Louise Blackwell KC, pleading: “Don’t you think you’ve put my life through hell enough, or your client has?”

In what Sandiford compared to a scene from a Liam Neeson film Taken, Williams alleged that Ramadan had put her to work in brothels in Amsterdam and sold her at auction there.

But the court heard at the time he was in Amsterdam, that his bank card had been used at a B&Q in Barrow.

Jordan Trengove, another man Williams has accused of rape, told the court, “You could ruin your life and she ruined mine.”

During her testimony, Williams denied telling a “bundle of lies” to the police and jury.

When asked about her Facebook post, she said: “I wanted people to know what was going on in Barrow, it was still going on.”

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