Woman, 22, found guilty of making false rape claims after ‘sex parties’ in Lancaster, Morecambe and Preston

Eleanor Williams, 22, of Barrow in Furness, was found guilty by a jury of seven offences at Preston Crown Court today after an eleven week trial.

She admitted another offence of intending to pervert the course of justice at an earlier hearing.

She will be sentenced on March 14 2023.

The Guardian reported during the court case that 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 November 29 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 March 6 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 March 13 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”.

She produced fabricated evidence to support her claims including fake Snapchat accounts and messages.

She implicated a number of men who she knew and gave the police fictitious names of people who she said had subjected her to sexual abuse, violence and rape.

Williams also told police that she had been in a sexual relationship with a different man since she was 12 or 13.

She claimed that this man and others had trafficked her to various places both inside and outside of the UK and exploited her.

Again, that was found to be untrue.

She used a man’s Snapchat account, who she had shared intimate messages with and amended the contact information so it would appear the explicit images came from the man she had accused.

She told officers she had been trafficked to Ibiza and made to have sex with men every night, the same had happened to her in Amsterdam.

She later retracted her claims about Ibiza when told passenger lists could be checked.

Her claims about Amsterdam were also found to be false.

She travelled to Amsterdam with her sister and her sister’s boyfriend, and they had been together at all times.

Even when challenged with this information, she still insisted her version was accurate.

In May 2020 she was located by the police after concerns for her safety were reported.

When she was found, she had numerous injuries and told the police she had been to an address in Barrow with a number of males.

She said she had been attacked with a knife and raped by three men.

Following an investigation, again this was found to be false.

A hammer was recovered from the field near to where she was located, the hammer had her DNA on it and was in fact the hammer she had purchased a week before.

Having considered her injuries, a pathologist confirmed they had not been caused by a knife but were consistent with being self-inflicted with a hammer.

Wendy Lloyd, Senior Crown Prosecutor with CPS North West’s rape and serious sexual offence unit said: “Eleanor Williams maliciously and persistently made false accusations against several men who had the misfortune of being acquainted with her.

“She knew what she was doing each time and made these false allegations intending that these men would be investigated, potentially prosecuted or even imprisoned as a result of her actions. One man was in prison on remand for over two months as a result of her accusations.

“The impact on those falsely accused has been devastating and this conviction now fully exonerates the men who she accused of serious sexual abuse.“The police and CPS take allegations of sexual offending extremely seriously. Each of Eleanor Williams’s accusations were thoroughly investigated, until it became clear that they were completely and incontrovertibly untrue and made with malevolent intent.

“The CPS worked closely with Cumbria police to build a strong case to put before the jury.

"The web of lies Williams told began to unravel as evidence was produced including CCTV, linguistics experts, eyewitness accounts, mobile phone positioning data, medical reports and forensic evidence.

“False accusations of this kind are very rare. This has been an unusual case and it is important for victims of rape or sexual assault to understand that they should never fear coming forward to report the crime to police.

“The CPS will never prosecute somebody for perverting the course of justice simply because, for instance, there may be discrepancies in the evidence or because the victim chooses not to continue to support a case or if the prosecution stops the case, or if a jury finds the defendant not guilty.

“A prosecution will only be brought where there is clear evidence that allegations were provably false, maliciously made and that it is the public interest to do so.”