Barrow: Eleanor Williams shocked by her arrest

A woman accused of lying about being the victim of a grooming gang was "shocked" when she was arrested, a court has heard.

Eleanor Williams, 22, told police she had been trafficked but admitted lying about aspects of her story, Preston Crown Court heard.

She said her abusers made her tell lies to the police in an attempt to discredit her claims.

Ms Williams denies eight counts of perverting the course of justice.

Ms Williams told jurors police took her to hospital in July 2019 after she said she had been beaten by three men in her flat in Barrow, Cumbria, and officers arrested her a short while later.

"I was shocked that I'd been arrested," Ms Williams told the court.

She admitted giving police a false account when she described being trafficked in Blackpool on 30 June 2019 but said she had only done so because she was told to by "the men".

The court heard she travelled to Blackpool from Kendal, where police had taken her for her own safety after she told them she was part of a human trafficking ring.

The jury has been told once in Blackpool, Williams stayed at the Savoy Hotel, only leaving to buy a Pot Noodle and other food supplies from nearby shops.

She later told police she had sex with a number of men at four addresses in the town.

Williams told the court her abusers told her to go to Blackpool and then give the false account to police.

She said: "I was getting messages saying if you have told the police this, you need to tell the police this so that they think everything you've said is untrue."

She claimed the events she told police about had happened to her, but not on the dates which she described.

She added: "That's what I was told to do. I was scared if I didn't do it.

"I was scared of the men, scared of the consequences. I knew what they were capable of."

She said other accounts she gave during the interview were true, including that she was given drink and drugs by her abusers and beaten.

Other incidents she described included being taken to a brothel in Amsterdam and sold, made to watch a video of a beheading and told to have sex with a man whose wife couldn't conceive so she could have a baby for him.

The court heard after her arrest police questioned her about an account of being trafficked to Ibiza and, when they said they could check flight registers, Williams told them she had not been to Ibiza.

Williams told the jury she had been trafficked to Ibiza, despite what she said to police.

She said: "I thought it was the easiest answer to get me out of the police station."

She added: "I just wanted to get out of that interview. I was fed up."

The trial continues.

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