An alleged “serial liar” has gone on trial accused of making false allegations about being trafficked and sexually exploited by a fictional Asian grooming gang, as well as being raped by other men she knew in real life.
Eleanor Williams, 21, from Walney in Barrow-in-Furness, is accused of faking injuries to corroborate her false claims, including hitting herself in the face with a hammer, and posting photographs of her wounds in public social media posts, Preston crown court heard.
It is alleged that she used numerous mobile phones to create false evidence, fabricating messages in which her alleged abusers, assailants and traffickers appeared to discuss or admit their supposed crimes. Williams denies seven counts of perverting the course of justice.
As a result of her lies, a number of men were arrested and interviewed on suspicion of sexual offences, the jury heard. Not all of the men she accused were Asian. One white young man, Jordan Trengrove, a friend of Williams’ from Barrow, was arrested and charged with rape, spending three months in prison on remand because of three false allegations she made against him in 2019.
But Williams went to great lengths to concoct the idea that she had been trafficked by an Asian grooming gang, said Jonathan Sandiford KC, opening the case for the prosecution.
He said Williams “manipulated” social media posts and text messages “to make it appear to others that she was constantly being contacted by Asian males or people with Asian male names, in particular, about sex or sexual matters”. She is also accused of fabricating messages to suggest that other young women were being trafficked and abused by the same people.
The jury heard that on a number of occasions, Williams presented herself at railway stations or to hospitals or police in “a vulnerable and injured state”, alleging that she had been sexually assaulted and/or subjected to violence by her traffickers.
“On such occasions, police officers, medical staff and others appear to have taken her accounts of being the victim of sexual exploitation and violence at face value,” said Sandiford. “However, after an incident in May 2020, the police eventually established that [Williams] had in fact been injuring herself.”
The jury heard that matters “came to a head” on the evening of 19 May 2020, when Williams failed to return home as expected and was reported missing.
When she was found by the police she had significant injuries to her face, body and limbs and a very badly cut finger “to the extent that the tip of her finger was almost cut off”, said Sandiford.
She claimed that she had been taken to a house in Barrow, gang raped, beaten and attacked with a knife causing the cut to her finger, the jury heard.
She made substantially the same claims in a public Facebook post the next day, 20 May 2020. “Police … established that none of it was true,” Sandiford told the jury. “In particular, police established that [her] injuries had been self-inflicted with a hammer that the police recovered in the fields near to where they had found Miss Williams on the night when she had failed to return home.”
The court heard that Williams made numerous false allegations to medical professionals, work colleagues and the police over a period of two and a half years up to May 2020.
The first false allegation was made when she was 16 and at the house of a friend, Cameron Bibby, in October 2017, with two other male friends. The jury heard that she had had too much to drink, became unwell and vomited and the young men present contacted her family.
Her mother came to collect her but as she helped her outside, she staggered and fell and one witness recalls her loudly screaming “Help” and “Rape”, the jury heard. Her mother was concerned and took her to Furness general hospital, where she accepted having taken alcohol and cannabis “but made no suggestion that she had been attacked or even sexually assaulted”, the court was told.
However, a few days later Williams began to make screenshots of text messages that purported to suggest that she had been drugged and raped. Some of these appeared to have come from a Snapchat Account with the name CamBib158 that was clearly intended to appear to be Bibby, Sandiford said.
Bibby was arrested and interviewed. He was on bail for about six months before being informed that no further action was going to be taken.
The next man to be falsely accused of rape was Trengrove, after he went on a night out with Williams in Barrow in March 2019.
The court heard that she manipulated Snapchat screengrabs to suggest Trengrove had spiked her drink when she was “off her face”. A few days after the alleged assault, a Snapchat account in the name of jtrengy7 was created by somebody using the wifi at Williams’ home address. This account sent messages to Williams’ own Snapchat making confessions of rape.
Williams made two further false allegations against Trengrove, the court heard.
Summarising the case, Sandiford said: “The prosecution says that Miss Williams is a serial liar and that on number of occasions between October 2017 and May 2020, she made a number of false allegations that she had been the victim of sexual offences such as rape and sexual assault, offences of violence and that she had been assaulted or injured with weapons, and that she had been a victim of human trafficking.”
The trial continues.
