A girl who claimed she had been the sufferer of an Asian grooming gang has been convicted of perverting the course of justice.
Eleanor Williams, 22, put photos on Facebook and claimed she had been groomed, trafficked and crushed – however prosecutors mentioned her accidents have been self-inflicted with a hammer.
Her submit was shared greater than 100,000 occasions and led to demonstrations in her residence city and a go to by former English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson to “investigate”.
A jury at Preston Crown Court right now discovered her responsible of eight counts of doing acts tending and supposed to pervert the course of justice.
Her trial heard how she had accused a number of males of rape going again to 2017, in addition to claiming an Asian gang abused her.
Williams, from Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, printed the images in May 2020 after claiming she’d been taken to a home and raped.
But prosecutors mentioned the accidents had been self-inflicted with a blood-stained hammer discovered by police at her residence.
Jonathan Sandiford KC mentioned it was the “finale” to a string of lies by Williams.
“The defendant goes online to her social media contacts and effectively finds random names on the internet she presents as being victims of trafficking or perpetrators,” he informed the jury.
It was alleged she despatched some social media messages to herself, making them seem as in the event that they have been from traffickers or different victims.
In different circumstances, she was accused of manipulating actual folks to ship messages which she then mentioned have been from abusers.
Williams denied telling a “pack of lies” and through proof mentioned she wished “people to know what was going on in Barrow, still is going on”.
She pleaded responsible to at least one depend of perverting the course of justice after contacting her mom and sister to ask them to take a hammer to her solicitor.
Source: information.sky.com”