I tried to kill myself after sick liar said I groomed & raped her and 60 others… she cut off her own finger to frame me
WITH haunted pictures that showed extensive facial bruising, the word ‘RAT’ carved into her stomach and a partially-severed finger, Eleanor Williams’ testimony left the nation aghast.
The 24-year-old, from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, claimed to have been beaten, tortured and forced to have sex with scores of men at sordid sex parties from the age of 12 in a harrowing ordeal that lasted multiple years.
The 1,300-word Facebook post in which Williams relayed her terrifying experiences at the hands of “takeaway owners and workers”, who were “mostly Pakistani men”, sparked outrage across Britain and drew attention from as far away as America and Australia.
Claiming the “local and very real issue” was not being taken seriously, it served as the tinderbox that sparked protests led by white supremacist groups and far-right thugs like Tommy Robinson.
Non-white business owners and those accused of assaulting Williams saw attacks on their premises, homes and vehicles as well as threats against their lives.
Her harrowing claims bore chilling similarities to the Rotherham and Rochdale child sex abuse rings, which saw collectively saw more than 1,400 kids as young as 11 raped, trafficked and beaten by gangs of British-Pakistani men.
In 2020, when Williams shared her viral post, she claimed she wasn’t alone and presented police with a list of 60 named girls, who she said suffered with her. But all was not as it appeared.
Every one of her claims, including those made in multiple police interviews, were a “complete fiction”. Her injuries were self-inflicted with weapons including a claw-hammer and threatening messages from her ‘abusers’ were forged with the aid of six mobile phones and dozens of fake social media profiles.
The web of lies was concocted by devious fantasist William, who without reason sought to “destroy the lives” of the men she falsely accused, many of whom attempted suicide.
In March 2023, Williams was sentenced to nearly nine years in prison for nine counts of perverting the course of justice and now the devastation caused by her fabrications is being revealed in a new three-part Channel 4 documentary.
Her victims including Mo Rammy, Jordan Trengrove and multiple British-Asian business owners, as well as their families, have spoken out in Accused: The False Grooming Scandal, which airs this Tuesday and Wednesday.
Mo – full name Mohammed Ramzan – was falsely accused of raping Williams, pimping her out for money and other crimes including trying to sell her at a sex slave auction and forcing her to work in a brothel.
Revealing the impact of the lies, his wife Nicola said: “He’s not the person he was. He has depression and anxiety. His bravado is out there but behind closed doors, it’s broken him.
“It got to the point where he smashed this bottle over his head and there was blood everywhere. He smashed the bottle and held it up to his throat… his head couldn’t take it anymore.”
Sinister plot
Prior to the seismic scandal, Barrow-in-Furness was famed for building nuclear submarines and considered a friendly port town where “everyone knows everything” about each other’s personal lives.
But when Williams shared her inflammatory and deceitful post in March 2020, everything changed as residents turned on those wrongly accused.
According to one internet sleuth the public, who feared a cover-up, were “calling for blood and people to be hung, drawn and quartered”.
Having identified Asian men as the inflictors of her made-up abuse, businesses were targeted including Indian restaurant Mithali, where Williams had claimed to have got “stuck” – insinuating that was one site where she was attacked.
Owner Faz explained that the windows were smashed, he received vile messages and even received threatening calls.
In one, he was told: “We’re going to come get you. I know where you live. I’m going to rape your wife in front of your kids.”
Another target was Mo, who ran an ice cream van business, owned restaurants and had rental properties. Online sleuth falsely accused him of being “a gangster”, selling drugs and someone who “owns the town”.
Eleanor Williams 'was trying to heal herself' with vile lies
Forensic Psychologist Charlotte Armitage says she could immediately tell “something wasn’t right” after watching Eleanor Williams’s police interviews.
She tells the documentary: “It does seem like she’s a fantasist, I can see where that word has come from to explain it, but with all fantasy there are some facts.”
Armitage notes that self-harm, which Williams regularly performed, is normally used as “a form of punishment to cope with emotions” but not for this individual.
She adds: “Rather than a way to regulate her emotions, it’s a way to gain attention. So it’s unusual.”
While the judge in her trial ruled Williams “did all of this for no reason”, Armitage believes “it’s not as cut and dry, as black and white as that”.
Referring to the debate about whether Williams suffered from “complex PTSD” and her hints at abuse during her childhood, Armitage suspects her horrid actions were “almost a way of working her trauma out”.
“Things she wished she’d said, wished she’d done, actions she wished she’d taken, her needs are being met through this behaviour,” she adds.
“You can see it in the video footage that her drive to be heard and validated and consoled and for this trauma to be healed for her by appropriate adults, outweighs any thought and consideration for the people she made the allegations about, she was trying to heal herself.”
Windows of his businesses and rentals were smashed, friends were targeted with bricks and eggs, his car was scratched and offensive words were spraypainted on his properties, as well as him and his family receiving verbal and written abuse.
It followed Williams’s claims to police that he groomed her from the age of 12 to make her feel like “his girlfriend” and then instructed her to have sex with multiple men a night at parties.
“It turned out he was getting money… but instead of just one or two [men] it would be loads,” she said, squeezing out crocodile tears during one police interview.
Williams made a range of false claims including that Mo had tried to sell her for €25,000 at auction only for it to fall through, that she had been forced to work in an Ibiza brothel and taken to sex parties with 60 other girls in Barrow, Rochdale and Oldham.
Mo, who knew Williams’ mum Allison, was gobsmacked when he was arrested for modern-day slavery and human trafficking. He said: “I didn’t even know who Ellie was at the time.”
His wife Nicola said: “That was just the start of this nightmare, this nightmare movie script.”
She added: “The boys were spat on, had alcohol thrown over them, were called nonces, paedos. It was shocking… We were threatened with firebombs through the letter boxes.”
Mo’s son Harry was branded a “P**i constantly” and “a nonce” by members of the public, who he felt were “hellbent on making life a living hell” for him.
Recalling just a few of the incidents, he said: “Smashing your car windows in, smashing your van windows in, driving past your house screaming P**i.”
‘World was against us’
Another of Williams’s targets was Jordan Tengrove, who she falsely accused of raping her three times, after he allowed her to join his friends on a night out in 2019.
He told the documentary that after having drinks and taking photos together, she vanished and he and his pals went home not knowing where she had gone.
The fabulist told police on that night he hit her, threatened her with a knife and dragged her into a bathroom where he “stripped me naked, beat me with a shower head and had sex with me”.
Jordan, a white teenager, spent 73 days in prison, predominantly on a sex offenders wing for his own safety, after Williams first made the claims to police in 2019 before he was acquitted of all charges.
In 2020, after Williams’ post, which led to his photo being circulated online, he felt like “the whole world was against me” and it led to people spraypainting “paedo” on his house and making threats against his life.
What the public didn’t know as ‘Justice for Ellie’ protests broke out on the streets was that Williams had been under investigation by police for a year.
Misinformation fuelled violence and the cause was hijacked by the likes of far-right actor Tommy Robinson and the neo-Nazi, fascist hate groups Patriotic Alternative and National Action, which is a terrorist group, who spouted anti-immigration bile.
The outrage over what would transpire to be false claims garnered publicity all over the world and one fundraiser alone received £21,204.11 in donations for Williams’s family, including money sent from as far away as Australia and America.
Police had tried to shut down the false rumours insisting “there is no grooming gang” at the time, but some claimed them saying “very little” about the case allowed misinformation to spread further.
However, the force was handcuffed over what they could tell the public due to the investigation into Williams being active after they noticed countless discrepancies in her accounts.
They included claims she had been imprisoned in a room at the Savoy Hotel to have sex with Asian men – when CCTV evidence showed her meeting no men, leaving the hotel to buy sweets and a Pot Noodle, and listening to podcasts all evening while ignoring calls from family, friends and police.
At the time, she had been moved to a safe house for her own protection – after she claimed she was at risk of being targeted by the grooming gang – and had been reported missing due to leaving the venue.
‘Victims’ baffled
Another lie related to the 60 named girls she claimed were also victims of the sex trafficking ring. Few of them knew who Williams was and those who did denied it.
“This hasn’t happened to me, this isn’t true,” one of the ladies told the documentary. It led her to question: “So what else has been lied about?”
Williams also insinuated she was attacked with a claw hammer in response to her talking to police after being found with a swollen black eye, facial bruising and a partially severed finger, in May 2020.
When asked if she inflicted the wounds herself, she shamelessly told cops: “Are you having a laugh?” Yet CCTV evidence showed her buying the hammer used in the attack.
In one interview, Williams admitted she felt “bad for lying” and was “really, really sorry” before going on to spin yet another lie.
Claiming she previously hadn’t “felt safe enough” to tell the truth, she said her groomers instructed her to say “certain things that would put you off the scent of tracing them”.
She was charged with nine counts of perverting the course of justice but even then, the truth became twisted and misinformation encouraged verbal attacks and damage to the property of those Williams falsely accused.
Mo and his family feared for their safety, dealt with attacks to his home, vehicles and businesses and “hundreds of messages” and libelous comments online.
Mo and Jordan were relieved when the case went to court, hoping they could finally clear their names.
But during the case, more chilling details emerged including that Williams had created dozens of fake social media accounts and sent countless messages online and via text pretending to be them with six phones.
Commenting on one she had written while impersonating him, Jordan said: “It was like me apparently admitting to raping her and saying if she told anyone I’d rape her again and make sure I killed her. I felt disgusted.”
In January 2023, Williams was found guilty of all counts. She concocted “a complete fiction” according to the judge, who noted she showed “no significant signs of remorse”.
Outside the court, Mo said: “I feel no sense of triumph, only sadness. For the loss of the years and the impact on my family. The true impact this will have on true victims. That’s the loss here.”
In May 2023, Williams was described as “lonely, young, pale and resigned to her fate” when handed down an eight-and-a-half-year sentence.
However, it was noted she “wasn’t sobbing” and “even said a quiet ‘thank you’ afterward”, hinting that she believed she may have received a longer sentence.
Outside the court, Jordan emotionally told reporters: “I want to know why you have done this to us? She’s not only done this to me and Mo, she’s done it to our families.
The boys were spat on, had alcohol thrown over them, were called nonces, paedos. It was shocking
“There are innocent children and kids involved in our families… she’s destroyed their lives along with ours.”
Williams has never revealed her motivation for conjuring such a cruel web of lies and psychologists have debated whether she suffered from “complicated post-traumatic stress disorder”.
In court, she insisted: “I know I’ve made some mistakes and I am sorry. I was young and confused. I’m not saying I am guilty, but I know I have done some wrong and so I’m sorry.”
What is known is that social services were involved in Williams’s life up to the age of eight years old and she was said to have hinted at “abusive and unpleasant experiences during childhood”.
As for the money raised to support Williams, fundraiser Shane – who set up a page that brought in more than £21,000 – feels he was duped.
After the crook was found guilty, he was bombarded with messages urging him to get the money back and accusing him of deliberately “helping a liar”.
Shane, who gave a cheque to Ellie and her mum Allison, confronted the family demanding they return the money only for his messages to be ignored.
He says he “couldn’t see a way out” so reported it to his bank, who by the next morning had managed to retrieve some of the money – but it was only around one-third of it.
“I was frantically ringing the bank, I said ‘That’s amazing but how come it’s £7,158 when it was supposed to be £21,204’,” Shane recalled.
“She said that was all the money that was remaining of the money that you passed into her account.”
Later, in a Facebook post, Allison claimed she donated “the remaining money” to The Salvation Army and Refuge – it’s not known how much was given or if any money left her account.
“I find it hard to live with sometimes. Ellie is someone who has destroyed people’s lives,” Shane told the doc.
New life
Williams, now 24, was released in October after serving four years but has not returned to Barrow-in-Furness. While she likely leads a new life free from the troubles of her past, the same cannot be said for her victims.
Jordan, who suffers ongoing mental health issues, described “constantly looking over his shoulder” due to the abuse he faces despite being exonerated.
“I’ve had threats off people, I’ve had threats towards the kids,” he said. “People shout at me in the street. Some guy said, ‘You’re a rapist, we don’t want you in the area.’
“No matter how many times I tell them I’m innocent they think I’ve done it so what’s the point… I can’t feel like this anymore, it’s destroying too many things, it’s destroying my relationship, my family.”
Jordan and his partner, who he shares a young son with, have since split up due to the pressure of his mental health struggles, which resulted from the false claims.
Multiple Asian-run businesses in Barrow shut down due to attacks and lack of trade as a result of the rumour mill. Some Asians left the town to escape the persecution entirely.
Meanwhile Mo, who remarkably admits he feels sorry for Williams, is positive but admits he is struggling to piece his life back together.
His wife Nicola says he’s a shadow of his former self and revealed he tried to take his own life.
Unfortunately, those targeted by Williams’ lies will be forever scarred and tarnished and they fear nothing has been learned – especially by those who spread misinformation online.
In a damning final statement, Nicola said: “Do they know the extent of what that damage has done? I don’t think they do and I don’t think they care either.”
Accused: The False Grooming Scandal airs from 9pm on Tuesday 7th and Wednesday 8th January on Channel 4. Alternatively, you can watch the series on All4.
If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please call the Samaritans for free on 116123.