Grooming gang fantasist's mother says she 'wanted people to listen'
‘She was just trying to get people to listen to her’: Crying mother reveals motive behind lies of fantasist daughter who faked being of victim of Asian grooming gang after she was jailed for eight-and-a-half years
- Eleanor Williams was jailed for over eight years for perverting course of justice
- Mother Allison Johnston spoke of how she felt ‘heartbroken’ after the conviction
The mother of a fantasist jailed for lying about being raped by an Asian grooming gang broke down in tears today as she claimed she was ‘just trying to get people to listen to her’.
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.
The full extent of Williams’s dishonesty was this week revealed on CCTV that showed her buying the hammer she used to hit herself in the face and cause the injuries.
Today, her mother, Allison Johnston, a former Labour councillor, spoke for the first time since her daughter was sentenced.
Eleanor Williams, 22, (left, in a police mugshot and right, with her self-inflicted injuries) was found guilty of perverting the course of justice and has been jailed for eight and a half years. She will serve just over four years
The mother of a fantasist jailed for lying about being raped by an Asian grooming gang broke down in tears today as she claimed she was ‘just trying to get people to listen to her’
Today, her mother, Allison Johnston, a former Labour councillor, spoke for the first time since her daughter was sentenced
Williams’ litany of lies
The first claim
The first false allegation was made by Williams when she was 16.
Preston Crown Court heard she had been with others at Cameron Bibby’s house in November 2017 when she was sick after drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis.
Mr Bibby and his friends contacted Williams’s sister and mother, who came to collect her and later took her to hospital, where she alleged she had been raped.
Williams withdrew support from a prosecution in January 2018, after Mr Bibby had been arrested.
– Injuries
In March 2019 Williams had been on a night out with Jordan Trengove when she was taken home after becoming intoxicated.
She would later allege Mr Trengove raped her that night, and then on two later occasions, claiming he came to her flat, attacked her and threatened her with a knife.
Judge Robert Altham said: ‘She caused [the injuries] to herself to support her allegations. As we will see this was to become a feature of her conduct.’
– Trafficking
Williams claimed she had been groomed since the age of 12 or 13 by local business owner Mohammed Ramzan, who she falsely claimed took her across the region and persuaded her to have sex with other men.
She described punishment beatings, rape, a girl nearly dying as a result of a beating and another having a dog set on her.
– Amsterdam
Williams told police she had been taken to Amsterdam by Mr Ramzan, forced to work in a brothel and sold at an auction for 25,000 euros, but the buyer did not go through with the deal.
During the trial, Jonathan Sandiford KC compared the account to a scene from the Liam Neeson film Taken, in which an ex-Secret Service agent’s teenage daughter is abducted by human traffickers.
At the time Williams was in the Netherlands Mr Ramzan’s bank card was being used at a B&Q in Barrow, police discovered.
– Ibiza
Williams said she was taken to Ibiza by Mr Ramzan and made to have sex with men. She admitted this was not true when officers suggested they check flight documents, but at trial she maintained the allegation.
-Blackpool
When police investigated Williams’s account of being taken to addresses in Blackpool and forced to have sex with men, they found she had gone to the seaside resort alone and, after buying a Pot Noodle from a nearby shop, spent most of her time in her hotel room watching YouTube.
-Preston
After a chance encounter with Oliver Gardner in Preston city centre, Williams initially claimed he was a trafficker who forced her to take cocaine, sold her to two Asian men and raped her.
Judge Altham said: ‘This was a complete fabrication, much of it would be disproved from CCTV.’
– The hammer
In what the prosecution called her ‘finale event’, in May 2020 Williams was found by police with injuries including a swollen eye, cut finger and injuries to her legs and abdomen which were ‘too numerous to count’.
She would later post pictures of the injuries on Facebook with a description of being beaten, groomed and trafficked by Asian men.
But, evidence from a pathologist found the injuries were consistent with being caused to herself.
A hammer found at the scene had her DNA on and was identical to one she had purchased from Tesco earlier in the month.
Speaking through tears, she told Sky News: ‘[I’m] heartbroken. I can’t [describe it]. I still can’t take it in really. It just doesn’t feel real.’
Asked why her daughter told such lies, she added: ‘I believe she was just trying to get people to listen to her.’
Williams was brought up in a large stone-built semi by her mother and her stepfather.
She has an elder sister, Lucy, and a brother – who both doted on their younger sibling.
The family home is on a quiet street on Walney Island, just off Barrow-in-Furness, where houses sell for up to £315,000 – double the average for the area – and to neighbours they seemed an ‘entirely normal family’.
Williams’ grandmother, Anne Burns, is a Labour stalwart in the town – representing the town’s Hindpool ward on Cumbria County Council and serving as cabinet member for children’s services.
She has also been a ‘looked after children champion’ for the Barrow area and part of the town’s community safety partnership.
It comes as, one of her victims, Jordan Trengove, who spent 73 days in prison after he was charged over her lies and was left suicidal as a result, has demanded Williams receive a life sentence.
He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: ‘Because she’s had time served, I felt like it should have been longer, because in reality she’s only going to do two more years and then she’s going to be out.
‘I don’t think it’s fair at all because she’s destroyed multiple lives. I think she should have been given a life sentence.’
Mr Trengove also revealed how he had ‘rapist’ spray-painted on his house and his windows smashed.
He added: ‘I would love to know why she’s done this and what’s made her do this. There’s got to be an explanation for everything and we’ve not been given one.’
While Mr Trengove was locked up, another victim faced lurid allegations that he made her work at a brothel in Amsterdam before selling her to another pimp.
Supporters of the Labour councillor’s daughter raised more than £20,000 through a 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.
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 actually belonged 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.
Williams had denied telling a ‘pack of lies’ to the police and the jury, saying: ‘I wanted people to know what was going on in Barrow, still is going on’
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’.
Superintendent Matthew Pearman, of Cumbria Police, stressed that Williams’ 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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