A restaurateur has wept in court as he claimed to have been falsely accused of trafficking and sexually exploiting a teenager in Barrow-in-Furness.
Mohammed Ramzan was arrested and held in a cell for 40 hours after Eleanor Williams accused him of selling her in an Amsterdam brothel for €25,000 when she was 17, Preston crown court heard on Monday.
No charges were ever brought against Ramzan relating to Williams. Instead, she is on trial, accused of making up what the prosecution called “a pack of lies” about a string of men.
As well as Ramzan, she falsely accused schoolmates from Barrow and random strangers of trafficking or raping her, the jury has heard.
Williams is also accused of faking letters from Ramzan in which he “confesses” to hurting her. She denies seven counts of perverting the course of justice.
Ramzan told the court he had only met Williams once before she “put me through hell” and accused him of exploiting and trafficking her. He said his wife was best friends with Williams’ aunt, Emma, and that he and Williams had been at one of Emma’s birthday parties.
He said he moved to Barrow in 2011 and turned a pub on Walney Island into an Indian restaurant called Mr Elephant. He then opened an Italian restaurant, a bar and an ice-cream van business and later a takeaway.
In July 2019 he was driving along the promenade in Walney when he was stopped and arrested by police, the court heard. Police told him that Williams claimed he had trafficked her to Amsterdam the previous November and tried to sell her to the highest bidder.
He maintained his innocence and provided bank statements showing that his debit card had been used at B&Q and Asda in Barrow at the time Williams said he was exploiting her in Amsterdam.
Louise Blackwell KC, defending Williams, suggested that Ramzan’s bank card could have been used by his teenage sons while he was in Amsterdam. He rejected this suggestion, saying: “If I go anywhere, that card comes with me.”
Williams’ sister, Lucy Williams, gave evidence last week to say that the sisters travelled to Amsterdam in November 2018 to celebrate Eleanor’s upcoming 18th birthday, along with Lucy’s boyfriend. She said the three shared a room and that they didn’t notice Eleanor going missing during the break.
Cross-examining Ramzan, Blackwell asked if he had made money from selling girls for sex. ‘“I have never, ever in my life, and I have got a daughter myself, I’ve got nieces, and it’s disgusting. Your client has put me through hell,” he said.
He also denied making money from drug dealing, saying that he “wasn’t an angel” and had taken drugs, but had never been involved in supplying them.
Asked by the prosecutor, Jonathan Sandiford KC, if he had ever committed any offences against Williams, Ramzan cried as he said: “I have never committed a single offence against Ms Williams.”
The jury was read a series of letters found under Williams’ bed at her mother’s house in Barrow in December 2020.
Most of the letters purported to be from Ramzan, sent from a prison in Durham, in which he apologised for hurting her. The letters made repeated reference to Williams having a baby boy called Bailey, who may have been taken away from her. One letter, from Williams and addressed to Ramzan, also referenced Bailey. “Everyone said I would be a shit mam and so far they are right,” she wrote.
But the court heard that Ramzan was never in Durham prison and that Williams does not have a son called Bailey.
A handwriting expert analysed the letters and found they had all been written by Williams, Sandiford told the jury.
The trial continues.
