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The sister of a jailed fantasist has not accepted that her sibling spun lies about being raped and beaten by an Asian grooming gang – but agreed with the court that the three innocent men driven to the brink of suicide by her allegations are blameless.
Eleanor Williams, 22, was jailed for eight-and-a-half years at Preston Crown Court on Monday for perverting the course of justice.
She sparked outrage after gruesome images of her bruised face and claims of abuse from a violent Asian group went viral and led to public demonstrations in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria where businesses were daubed with racist abuse.
Williams’s full deviousness was revealed as CCTV showed her buying the hammer with which she would hit herself in the face to cause the injuries.
But when asked about a specific occasion when Eleanor returned home one weekend with injuries, her sister Lucy Williams has refused to accept that it could have been Eleanor who inflicted them.
Speaking to Sky News after the sentencing, Ms Williams spoke of a time when she claims a man had been ‘harassing’ Ellie at a bar.
The sister of a jailed fantasist has not accepted that her sibling spun lies about being raped and beaten by an Asian grooming gang – but agreed with the court that the three innocent men she accused are blameless (pictured, Lucy Williams, the sister of Eleanor Williams)
Eleanor Williams, 22, (pictured) of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, was jailed for eight-and-a-half years at Preston Crown Court on Monday for perverting the course of justice. She sparked outrage after gruesome images of her bruised face and claims of abuse from a violent Asian group went viral and led to public demonstrations in the Cumbrian town where businesses were daubed with racist abuse
‘One of the men was harassing Ellie at the bar, some of our friends had seen it and warned him off,’ she explained. ‘He grabbed her outside of the takeaway and started pulling her arm and said “come on, we’re going”. Yep [I did see that].
‘She was like “No I’m going with my sister”, you could see his face he was so angry with her. And she did come home with me, then the next weekend she came back black and blue, like worse than we’ve ever seen.’
The broadcaster outlined that Lucy believes this is a different man who was not named as one of the victims in the case.
When asked if she believes there is any possibility that on this noted occasion her sister could have hurt herself instead of the attack she claimed, in order to ‘create more impact’, Lucy said: ‘No. I don’t believe so no.’
When describing the injuries when seeing them first hand, she said: ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. Obviously I’ve worked in nursing homes and I’ve seen some awful stuff but nothing like what I’ve seen on Ellie.’
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.
Williams’s full deviousness was revealed as CCTV showed her buying the hammer with which she would hit herself in the face to cause the injuries. But when asked about a specific occasion when Eleanor returned home one weekend with injuries, her sister Lucy Williams has refused to accept that it could have been Eleanor who inflicted them
The fantasist was seen in a hotel in Blackpool at the same time she claimed she had been trafficked
Williams at a Tesco in Barrow buying a hammer that she later used to beat her own face
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.
Falsely accused: Mohammed Ramzan and Jordan Trengrove – who were both totally innocent
Mohammed Ramzan (second right), who was accused of trafficking by Eleanor Williams, with Nicola Holt (right), outside Preston Crown Court, Lancashire, where Williams was jailed for eight-and-a-half years for nine counts of perverting the course of justice after she claimed to have been the victim of an Asian grooming gang
‘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 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’s 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.
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