Eleanor Williams: Barrow woman 'hurt herself with hammer'

Eleanor Williams denied the charges at Preston Crown Court

A "serial liar" who claimed she was being trafficked for sexual exploitation caused injuries to herself with a hammer, a court has heard.

Prosecutors allege Eleanor Williams, from Barrow in Cumbria, falsified evidence about being drugged and threatened by men who gang raped her.

They also say she made up evidence she was trafficked to Ibiza to be abused.

The 21-year-old denied perverting the course of justice when she appeared at Preston Crown Court.

The charges include further allegations that Ms Williams lied about being made to work in an Amsterdam brothel and about being sold at an auction.

Jonathan Sandiford KC, prosecuting, told the court she made allegations on a number of occasions between October 2017 and May 2020.

He said she fabricated messages in which her alleged abusers, assailants and traffickers appeared to admit offences and in which she appeared to communicate with other trafficking victims.

He said she also manipulated phone and social media contacts to make it appear that she was being constantly contacted by males with Asian names about sexual matters.

'False claims'

The court heard her allegations of rape against one man, Jordan Trengove, led to him being arrested, charged and kept in custody for three months before proceedings were discontinued.

In 2019, Ms Williams was arrested for perverting the course of justice and released pending further investigations, the jury was told.

Mr Sandiford said: "Unfortunately, the fact that her lies and false allegations had been exposed by the police in July 2019 did not cause her to stop.

"Instead, she continued to fabricate evidence to try and make it appear that her false claims of being the victim of trafficking and sexual exploitation were true."

He said she presented herself at railway stations, hospitals and to police in vulnerable and injured states and alleged she had been sexually assaulted or subjected to violence by her traffickers.

'Failed to return home'

The court heard that on 19 May 2020, Ms Williams was reported missing and then found by police with significant injuries to her face, body and limbs and a badly cut finger.

Mr Sandiford said she claimed, to police and on a public Facebook post, that she had been taken to a house in Barrow, gang raped, beaten and attacked with a knife.

He said: "The police made inquiries, as they were bound to do, into what Ms Williams had alleged and they established none of it was true.

"The police established that her injuries had been self-inflicted with a hammer police recovered in fields near to where they had found Ms Williams on the night she had failed to return home."

The trial continues.