Eleanor Williams

In 2020, Eleanor Williams made a Facebook post claiming she was the victim of a British Asian grooming and trafficking gang. Later in 2020, the police charged Williams with perverting the course of justice. In 2023, she was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison on nine counts. Her appeal was rejected. Williams' post went viral, being shared more than 100,000 times. More than £22,000 was initially donated to her, but donated to charity following conviction. The post fuelled racial tensions in Britain and sparked backlash against Asian-owned businesses in her home town of Barrow, England. The UK Government, partially in response to Williams' claims, stated their intention to introduce new social-media based criminal offences as part of the Online Safety Bill. False accusations and conviction Williams' first claim was in 2017, when she was 16 years old. She stated in November 2017 that she became unwell from drinking beer and consuming marijuana while at a man's home. Williams' family was contacted by him and his companions, who then picked her up and took her to the hospital. At the hospital, she claimed she had been raped. After the accused was taken into custody in January 2018, she withdrew her support for the prosecution. In 2019, Williams made false allegations of rape against another man, causing the police to arrest and keep him in custody for three months. Williams was arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice before being released pending further investigation. She told police that she was trafficked to Blackpool, Ibiza, and Amsterdam. The investigation revealed she had instead booked herself into the Blackpool hotel and stayed inside. She retracted the Ibiza claim when informed her travel records would be checked. The investigation further found that she had spent her entire time in Amsterdam with her sister and her sister's boyfriend.