Three men who were falsely accused of rape by the same woman said they tried to kill themselves as a result of her lies and one was twice sectioned in a psychiatric unit, a court has heard.
Eleanor Williams, 22, from Barrow-in-Furness, was convicted in January of nine counts of perverting the course of justice.
Her Facebook claims of being raped and trafficked by an Asian grooming gang sparked a worldwide solidarity movement with its own line of merchandise, Justice for Ellie. It also ignited community tensions in her Cumbrian town, Preston crown court was told on Monday.
Police recorded 151 crimes by other people linked to the case, including 83 hate crimes, Williams’ sentencing hearing heard.
Her story was shared online by public figures with large followings, including Countdown’s Rachel Riley and the former Greater Manchester police detective Maggie Oliver, the court heard.
Supt Matt Pearman said it caused the sort of “open hostility” not seen in Barrow since 1988, when workers at the Vickers shipyard went on strike for 12 weeks. He said Barrow had yet to recover from the impact of Williams’ lies.
Though Williams singled out Asian men in an incendiary Facebook post on 20 May 2020, she also wrongly accused three white men of rape, the court heard.
One of them, a trainee electrician called Oliver Gardner, met Williams just once, in what the prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford KC described as “a chance encounter” in Preston on 18 July 2019.
The jury was played CCTV footage showing a clearly drunk Gardner asking Williams for a light. The pair then briefly disappeared down a side street, with Williams seen emerging within a minute. He told the jury that the pair had had a brief sexual encounter and nothing more.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Gardner described his shock at Williams’ claims. “I was being accused of being a rapist, a drug dealer and a human trafficker,” he said.
Gardner said the stress of being falsely accused resulted in him being sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Then, 18 months ago, he tried to kill himself and was sectioned again.
He said Williams had ruined his life. He had had one final exam to sit before becoming an electrician but “because of what happened I was unable to continue my studies”, he said.
Jordan Trengove, whom Williams accused of raping her three times, including at knifepoint, said he also tried to kill himself after spending 10 weeks on remand for a crime he did not commit.
In his witness impact statement, the now 22-year-old described how people painted the word “rapist” on the front of his house and smashed his windows. He was taken to hospital after trying to kill himself, and he has been diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of his ordeal.
After having a son with his new partner, social services told him they had received 60 anonymous tip-offs about him “not being safe around children”, Trengove said in his statement. Forced out of Barrow, he was greeted by his new neighbour shouting: “Rapist – we don’t want you living here.”
He said he had been put through “three years of hell” because of Williams’ lies. “I don’t think I will ever fully recover,” he said in his statement.
Mohammed Ramzan, a Barrow businessman accused of being the kingpin of an international trafficking ring, opted to read out his witness statement.
Frequently becoming tearful, the 43-year-old described trying to kill himself as a result of the “mental torture” he had experienced. He said his windows had been smashed, his tyres slashed, and he felt his reputation had been “destroyed”.
Cameron Bibby, the first man Williams accused of rape, back in 2017 when she was just 16, said people called him a “dirty rapist” online and that he was scared to pick his son up from nursery because of the way people looked at him.
He said that after Williams posted her account on Facebook, his neighbours displayed “Justice for Ellie” stickers in their windows, which “intimidated” him. He said he was struggling to find work, having applied for 30 jobs with no success. “I can’t help but feel this is a result of my name being tarnished by the last five years,” he said.
The court heard of reports by two psychiatrists who assessed Williams’ mental state. Dr Martin Lock, commissioned by the prosecution, said he was unable to find a psychiatric diagnosis while Williams continued to maintain her innocence. He found Williams to have an “immature personality and a considerable amount of anger”.
Dr Lucy Bacon, who examined Williams several times over the years for the defence, diagnosed complex PTSD as a result of “childhood trauma”. She said there were social services records of such matters.
Bacon told the court that Williams was considered vulnerable in prison and that she was being kept on a wing for women with “significant mental disorder”.
The court did not hear details of the childhood trauma after the defence said they were not relying on it to reduce Williams’ culpability.
YouTube clips showing solidarity protests in Barrow for the Justice for Ellie movement were played at the sentencing hearing.
In some of them, the far-right activist Stephen Yaxley Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, could be seen interviewing Williams’ supporters as they talked of a police “cover-up”.
Williams will be sentenced on Tuesday.
In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org.
