According to testimony in court on Monday (13), three innocent men were driven to attempt suicide following false accusations of rape by a woman named Eleanor Williams.
The 22-year-old woman from Barrow-in-Furness had posted on Facebook in May 2020, claiming that she had been the victim of rapists and an Asian grooming gang.
Her allegations caused uproar in a Cumbria town and even led to protests attended by Tommy Robinson in her hometown of Barrow-in-Furness.
However, it was revealed in court on Monday that Williams' claims were completely false and that the allegations had caused immense distress to the three men who were accused. They reportedly tried to take their own lives as a result of the false accusations. One of the men was even twice admitted to a psychiatric unit.
Williams was found guilty in January of nine counts of perverting the course of justice. The prosecution alleged that she had inflicted injuries on herself with a hammer to support her false claims. Photographs of the injuries were presented in court.
During the initial day of Williams' sentencing hearing, Mohammed Ramzan, a business owner falsely accused of grooming by Williams, testified that his life had turned into a "living hell" due to the baseless allegations.
Speaking from the witness box, an emotional Ramzan revealed that he had attempted to take his own life just two weeks after his arrest following Williams' accusations.
Ramzan reported that his property had been vandalised, and his businesses had been destroyed, following the targeting of him and his family “in the most horrendous way”.
He said, “I have had countless death threats made over social media from people all over the world because of what they thought I was involved in.”
According to the court, Williams not only made inflammatory comments targeting Asian men in a Facebook post on May 20th, 2020, but also falsely accused three white men of rape.
Jordan Trengove, another victim of Williams' false accusations, revealed in a statement to the court that his house too was vandalised and his window was smashed after she accused him of rape.
The word "rapist" was spray-painted on his property, leading to his arrest and imprisonment for 73 days, where he was forced to share a cell with a convicted sex offender.
He described the lowest point of his life as the moment when he attempted to take his own life in August 2020.
Oliver Gardner, who encountered Williams in Preston, shared that he was falsely accused of rape, which led to his being sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
He explained that he was contacted by the police after their meeting and told of her accusations.
Gardner described the situation as being in the “wrong place at the wrong time,” and his life was turned upside down.
He also reported that he tried to take his own life before being sectioned and that the whole period of his life has been incredibly “overwhelming”.
During Williams' sentencing hearing, it was revealed that 151 crimes committed by other individuals were recorded by the police in connection to the case, among which 83 were classified as hate crimes.
On Tuesday Williams, of Teasdale Road, Barrow, is anticipated to receive sentencing for nine counts of committing acts with the intention of perverting the course of justice.
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