A woman accused of lying about being raped and trafficked by an Asian grooming gang claimed she was forced to get engaged to one of her abusers to help him get a visa.
Eleanor Williams, 22, said the man, Muhmun, was from Bangladesh and that they met in her home town of Barrow when she was a teenager. She told a jury at Preston crown court that he was one of numerous Asian men who plied her with drugs and alcohol and paid her for sex at “parties”, which the prosecution say never took place.
She claimed that Muhmun’s uncle, Mohit, arranged the engagement “so that Muhmun could set up a business in this country”. It was supposed to be a secret, she told the jury. Asked by her barrister, Louise Blackwell KC, if she intended on going through with the wedding, Williams said: “I don’t know. I was out of it to be honest. I didn’t think that far along. It was easiest to go along with it.”
Giving evidence for a fourth day on Tuesday, Williams was asked about several occasions when she was reported missing by her mother and was found injured and incoherent by police at locations in Morecambe, Lancaster and Preston.
On 29 November 2019 officers discovered her collapsed and injured on the Millennium Bridge in Lancaster, 50 miles away from Barrow. She was taken by ambulance to the Royal Lancaster Infirmary for treatment. She told the jury she was “off her head” after being given drugs at a party.
A few days later she was found at Morecambe railway station, where she again said she had been at parties where she had been forced to have sex with men.
On 6 March 2020 she was found in Preston city centre, and again told officers she had been at sex parties. She told the jury she had been given ketamine at the party, where she had been tied to a radiator with duct tape and hit.
On 13 March 2020 a conductor on a train from Lancaster to Barrow spotted her dishevelled and called the police, concerned for her welfare. She told the jury she had “done a runner” from a sex party in Lancaster, where three Asian men “cut my boobs”.
The jury was shown a selfie taken by Williams which she said showed the knife wounds on her breasts. The image was produced by the defence and was not one examined by a forensic pathologist earlier in the trial, who concluded that Williams had repeatedly caused her own injuries.
Williams was also asked about an incident on 19 May 2020 when she was found by police injured on Walney airfield near her mother’s house in Barrow.
She said she had been taken there by Mahmun, who told her they needed to get the wedding done because “immigration were looking for him”.
Earlier that evening she said she had been on the way to her boyfriend’s house in Barrow when she was picked up by a man whose name she declined to give the jury.
She said the man took her to a house in Barrow where there were nine other men. Some had sex with her and then she said a group assaulted her, kicking and punching her in the face and body and almost severing her little finger with a knife.
The jury has previously heard evidence from Dr Alison Armour, a forensic pathologist, who concluded Williams’ injuries were self-inflicted on that day, and that she had probably cut her own finger with the claw end of a hammer.
After finding her in the field on 19 May, police took her to hospital. She was treated and discharged and went home and posted a detailed account on Facebook of how she had allegedly come about her injuries in the house with 10 men, including photographs.
Asked why she decided to go public, Williams said: “Because I was sick of what was happening to me. I didn’t know how else to stop it. And at this point I didn’t care. I thought everybody can know what’s happening to me and maybe it can stop.”
She said she was arrested within 20 minutes of making the Facebook post, and soon was charged with perverting the course of justice.
Williams denies eight counts of doing acts tending and intended to pervert the course of justice.
The trial continues.
