Eleanor Williams: The teenager who faked a grooming scandal also named real abusers

Readers might well remember the strange case of Ellie Williams the young girl from Barrow-in-Furness who was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment in March 2023 for perverting the Course of Justice. She had made allegation of sexual abuse, ape, sex slavery and protitution about a variety of men. Some were people she had met on line, others were several Asian takeway and restaurant owners in Barrow. Some of her allegation were plasible and believed; others were ludicrous and easily disproved. Making false accusations is reprehensible and could have ruined the lives of innocent young men.  Not even her defence counsel knows why she did this.

But.. but…

The genuine convictions of an organised family of Muslim heritage men, the Brothers Miah last week, confirms that Cumbria police were ‘mistaken’ when they insisted that there was no organised grooming gang operating in Cumbria. Azad Miah of Carlisle (any relation? It’s a fairly common name) seems to have been tried alone. He was convicted in 2012. Did he act alone?

My thumbs have pricked about this for 5 years. As I wrote previously, I wasn’t sure how the dates matched up.  And while local gossip had Shah Joman Miah, known as Sarj, working at the family take-way AND working as a delivery driver for Mohammed Ramzan, named by Ellie, at his restaurant, aquaintance isn’t evidence.   I was very suspicious that the trial of the Miah Brothers was scheduled to start before that of Ellie but was taken from the list and not listed again until a year afterwards.

I yearned for some proper investigative journalism.

I won’t say that is what Sky News have done, but in their series of podcasts about the case they have now noticed this and got access to extracts from Ellie’s diaries that were examined in court but not reported in the press. I did not know that she had mentioned the Miah brothers.  Mentioned and implicated many timesThey have also interviewed other girls.

I couldn’t believe that I was the only person making the connection; it is that obvious.  Sky says

…she (Eleanor Williams) was found guilty of perverting the course of justice. In January 2023, a jury found that she had lied, fabricated evidence and even inflicted wounds upon herself to frame innocent men.

There is, however, a new twist in this murky story.

There were Asian men grooming girls in Barrow – and at least one of those involved was linked to Eleanor’s allegations.

For the first time, Sky News is revealing extracts of a diary Eleanor kept in the run-up to her notorious Facebook post. And while her diary, which catalogues abuse by controlling men, may be another work of fiction, somehow within it, the girl famed for lying identifies a man who has been convicted of similar crimes.

“It’s hard,” she writes, that people think of her as a “liar” and “evil and a druggy”.

“I wish I could explain everything but what’s the point when they just say I’m lying,” she adds…

Her sister, Lucy, believes Eleanor had reached breaking point and spoke about feeling ignored by the police.

“The only way I can think of it stopping is if people know what’s going on,” Lucy says Eleanor told her.

The Facebook post triggered a wave of protest and anger at the police. People wanted “Justice for Ellie”.

The Asian community was targeted, businesses’ windows were smashed and there were more than 80 hate-related crimes linked to Eleanor’s claims in the ensuing months.

While no one was identified in her post, local restaurant and ice-cream van owner, Mohammed Ramzan, known as Mo Rammy, 45, was named by Eleanor to the police.

In March 2023, she was found guilty of trying to frame five men and was jailed for eight-and-a-half years.

While most of the town was ready to move on – there was a group of local women with an ordeal ahead of them. Barrow had a secret. Another much-delayed trial involving three Asian brothers accused of grooming and sexually abusing underage girls, some as young as seven, in Barrow and Leeds was about to getunder way.

“Barrow got branded a lying town,” says Elizabeth, a key witness. “It’s not. Grooming was happening here and still probably is.”

The three men faced 62 offences between them, which were alleged to have occurred in Leeds and Barrow between 1996 and 2010.

Shaha Amran Miah, 49, (Jai), was accused of 16 sexual offences against three girls, as well as two charges of intimidation and one of kidnap.

Shaha Alman Miah, 47, (Ali), faced three sexual offences against one girl.

Shah Joman Miah, 38, (Sarj), was accused of 40 sexual offences against three children. Nine of these were rape of a child.

Elizabeth’s then boyfriend worked at a takeaway called Iesha’s, owned by the Miah family. It was there, she says, that girls as young as 13 or 14 were taken to so-called sex parties.

“Men came down from Leeds.I know they’d come down for one thing… sex with girls,” she says.

Elizabeth was pregnant at the time. “I will set this house on fire with you and your partner in it and make sure that kid will never come out of you,” Jai told her, she says.

A key character in Eleanor’s diary is the man now convicted of 40 counts of child abuse, Shah Joman Miah – Sarj.

The diary is dated from late 2019 to early 2020. In it, Sarj is frequently named as part of a controlling network of men. In the extracts below, we’ve replaced the names of other men with Z.

“Monday 21 October 2019… Had Snapchats from Z saying Sarj needs me in Blackburn tomorrow, said I had to get the train to Preston because they didn’t know for definite where Sarj wanted me.”

She also worries about Sarj being “pissed off” with her and references him being at so-called “parties” where men take money after she “goes with” certain people.

Feelings of intimidation also feature. “Tuesday 29 October 2019… Was watching out of my bedroom window and the car must have circled about three times. I got into bed and laid in the dark in silence. Had Z telling me not to piss Sarj off, Z saying I’m not to lose money.”

Sky News has digital evidence that the diary was written around the time it was dated. It wasn’t public knowledge at that time that police were investigating the Miah brothers for historical crimes.

But we can reveal that both Sarj and Jai’s names were brought up in her trial as among those she alleged had abused her, and what’s more – she was never charged with lying about them.

It was suggested during her trial that diaries were all part of her fabrication, along with faked messages and self-inflicted injuries – but it is a strange coincidence that a now convicted sex offender is in there. And he is not the only one.

The diary may well be an extension of the fantasy, but there is other supporting evidence that something was happening to Eleanor.

Her former boss at a local pub spoke of her being intimidated by men while she was working. And her sister said she was grabbed by an Asian man in a nightclub and received threats on her phone over Snapchat.

Sky News obtained a psychiatric report, which referred to a medical professional who did not believe Eleanor’s injuries were self-inflicted. The forensic psychiatrist concluded she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and was likely to have been the victim of child sexual exploitation.

Social service reports also reveal intimate injuries

But the thing about the diary that is hard to ignore is she is naming men who would go on to be convicted of offences against other women.

Sarj had allegations made against him by another teenager in Barrow, which were investigated by police in 2018, but the case ended with no further action.

He was also identified by Sarah, not her real name, in Hull as having abused her from the age of 13 and selling her for sex to more than 100 men over three years.

Humberside Police continue to investigate Sarah’s case.

“He’s not just an abuser; he’s a ringleader,” Sarah told Sky News. When it comes to Eleanor’s case, she thinks the fact that Sarj “is a guy that has abused people” should have been looked at.

Elizabeth, whose evidence against Sarj helped lead to his conviction, said: “If I’d have known she’d [Eleanor] named him, I would have went to the police myself and said, ‘why are you calling this girl a liar?’.”

She said: “Barrow got branded to be a lying town. It’s not. Grooming was happening here and still probably is. Not every girl’s a liar you know and it’s not fair. Why don’t you put this out as much as you shouted about Ellie Williams being a liar?”

Elizabeth said four days after the verdict in October, someone smashed her window, and despite today’s sentencing, she still feels scared.

Eleanor has now been released from prison but has not returned to Barrow. She did lie about events, and a jury found she fabricated evidence, but we now know there were other liars in this town – with other secrets.

Eleanor was released early as part of the programme to free prison space for those convicted in the summer for speaking/acting with outrage over the Southport murders. In her case I’m not really sorry that she is now at large.