Eleanor Williams gets 8 years

[YNK]

Is this the right length of sentence to reflect the damage done?

She has had two psychiatric assessment - one saying she suffers from PTSD but with no real cause determined and is v immature. The second assessment did not agree with the PTSD finding and the judge accepted that finding

It's not just about her 3 victims that tried to commit suicide, were hounded out of their towns, still can't find employment, etc.

It's the domino effect of racial hate crimes she created. According to police, hate crimes in Barrow tripled that summer. Barrow police recorded 150 incidences linked to the Elly Williams case – that will just be the formally recorded cases, not the ordinary threats and slurs and attacks people endure in public places and schools daily. For years, family homes and businesses were vandalised and attacked nightly, and of course the family businesses lost their livelihoods overnight.

Being racially targeted, day after day and night after night in your own community is like a living hell-scape of fear. You know you're vastly immediately and societally outnumbered.

I've never experienced it on this scale of course, but as a foreigner, I moved away from the UK back to my own country because of this fear. Not that the UK is an inherently racist country (though Barrow was clearly an intensely racist place by that stage), but it's that feeling of never being safe even when you're home, because of who you are.

Apart from threatening interactions when I lived in certain areas, there's also the societal element. One of my friends from my country was badly attacked by racists in a case reported in the news and the public didn't even bat an eyelid – in fact, the police didn't take it seriously until my country's embassy got involved – so I know the same would go for me too. There've been lots of similar cases too where the same happened. It would be their word over mine. Worse in Barrow after Elly Williams.

As a woman of colour especially, white women will never know that awful physical and mental fear. But for men of colour, especially in known racist places, I don't think the physical element helps because any self-defense will count against them, and generally the system/public reception take racist crimes as a joke.

I wouldn't say Barrow is an intensely racist place normally - unfortunately a number of racists locally and further afield jumped onto the Asian trafficking claims and whipped things right up and kept the spotlight there and away from the fact that two of the three accused where actually white.
Tommy Robinson rocking up out of nowhere for example

100% agree

No she should be doing the full 8 year's in prison then be on licence when she gets out. Not long enough for the damage she's done.

@butterup as a Barrowvian, I am ashamed and appalled that you have felt such fear

I totally agree with the sentence, and I also agree that it is clear she needs help to deal with whatever the hell drove her to do this otherwise she will continue with this type of behaviour.

But......BIG BUT...... this ONE woman who has falsley claimed rape and been convicted. The coverage will just shore up the belief that raped woman are lying bitches with "sex regret". Why is there not as much coverage when a man is convicted of rape, given that it is such a vanishingly small percentage of the number of rapes that actually happen, I cant imagine that it would trouble the front pages too often.

Oh yes......because once again women dont matter and can be safely ignored until they do something wrong that affects men.

What she did was awful.

But.

She beat herself in the face with a hammer. Surely that’s the very definition of being mentally ill?

It’s depressing watching her get such a long sentence on the same day as the news reports that there were 1500 complaints of police violence against women in 6 months but only 13 of those men got sacked from the police force.

Delusional woman? Jail her for 8 years. Violent policeman who likes to hit women? Ignore the problem. Almost like the law treats a violent man better than a mentally ill woman. 🤔

And yet she’s the main story and today’s article about the police is buried in an obscure corner of the bbc site.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64915126

I'd say she needs phsychatric treatment rather than prison. She's obviously seriously mentally ill if she's making up stories about being sexually groomed and sexually violated (I can't even write that horrible r word) and beaten up to the point where she's inflicting severe injuries on herself.

‘She beat herself in the face with a hammer. Surely that’s the very definition of being mentally ill?’ - No it’s not, it’s fairly indicative however of a criminal that doesn’t want to be caught in their lies.

‘Delusional woman? Jail her for 8 years. Violent policeman who likes to hit women? Ignore the problem. Almost like the law treats a violent man better than a mentally ill woman. 🤔’ - I’m no fan of the police in general but you are way off the mark here. This women was assessed by two separate consultant psychiatrists, one of whom was instructed by her own defence team. She is not delusional. She does not lack understanding of what she did or why. She has not been diagnosed as being mentally ill.
She wasn’t jailed for 8 years for being delusional. She was sane when she lied repeatedly to the police.
She was sane when she named and accused men of horrendous crimes against her.
She was sane when she persisted in this to trial. She was sane when she showed no remorse for what she has done.
It’s a difficult thing for many of us to accept but some people are bad. Everything can’t be explained away by mental illness. Half the crimes that people are convicted of you could say they must be mentally ill to do that, because if you are not a person who would consider stabbing someone in the head with a screwdriver or reversing over someone’s legs with a car it is so far beyond your understanding that the only alternative is they must be ill. Some people are just bad apples without a moral conscience.

THIS.

Many women and children who've been raped consider or actually commit suicide. I had a friend who was abused as a child who committed suicide as an adult, she just couldn't get over what he had done to her despite years of therapy and trying.

It's not that her sentence is wrong but it exposes the misogyny. Rape is basically legal, all but the most extreme paedophilia (i.e. rape) is fast heading that way too. Many men who sexually assault children or are in possession of extreme child rape images get very light sentences.

That. I don't know why people are bringing up sentences for rape. It's as if they want to distract themselves from accepting that a woman could do this by going "but men...!"

The fact that the media is delving into why she would do such a thing shows the difference. No-one says ' the rapist must have done it because he had a terrible childhood'. But everyone's desperately trying to find an excuse for this woman who nearly drove three men to suicide, to have to flee their homes, and encouraged right wing violence.

She deserves far longer.

‘It's not that her sentence is wrong but it exposes the misogyny’
As a survivor I really object to people throwing about the false equivalences in this case. I know personally and professionally how difficult it is to secure a conviction for sexual offences.
This woman is not a victim of misogyny! She has diverted resources away which could have been used to actually prosecute real cases of sexual abuse and rape. Firstly with the initial totally false allegations and again with the case for perverting the course of justice.
She has undermined the ACTUAL survivors of grooming and sexual exploitation as there are now even more pricks lining up to say they are all liars. She got a sick kick or some kind of buzz out of pretending to be someone who was sexually abused.
She has cynically used her position as a woman in order to pursue a twisted agenda.
Carl Beech who falsely accused a load of high profile men of participating in a paedophile ring and sexually abusing him got 18 years for perverting the course of justice in a pretty directly comparable case.
I completely understand people’s anger at the difficulties securing convictions for rape and sexual assault. But the comments on here tonight have taken me to the fair. This woman has been assessed to NOT be mentally ill. She has undermined the very foundation of criminal justice. That is why she has been punished and in comparison to the sentence Carl Beech got, she has gotten off pretty lightly. Stop conflating this two issues, you are not doing the favour to survivors of sexual violence you believe yourself to be doing.

They're not one woman here who'd be finding excuses for her or distracting us all with "but men rape!" if it was their partner, son, brother or father who'd had their lives ruined over years because of this false accusations.

She consistent lied, over and over and over again. And we all know from mumsnet threads that none EVER disbelieves such accusations. The men always did it. So while everyone was buying purple elephants for her, not a single person outside their families (or possibly even within them) would have believed these men.

Whatever was behind it, I think this is one of the worse things you can do to anyone. And saying 'Well women who've been raped feel suicidal too' has absolutely no relevance to this case and what it did to those men and their families.

It's impossible to get your head round the motive for this other than a huge amount of attention seeking. But I don't understand why the family have pushed and pushed for all the support they received when they must have seen through the lies early on as she lived at home.

Yes, but only goes to show how a mum and dad who neglected their disabled daughter to death with prolonged suffering and degradation over six months have gotten unduly lenient sentences of 6 and 7.5yrs.

Makes no sense that lying about rape which caused serious harm but no deaths carries a heavier sentence than slowly killing your own child.

I actually think she has a personality disorder. It’s not the actions of a mentally healthy person to almost sever your own finger, do those sorts of serious injuries to yourself repeatedly, and deliberately put yourself in very dangerous situations in order to get attention. I think she shouldn’t be going to prison, but to a psychiatric hospital.

@Eyerollcentral , I want to applaud your post. The false equivalence going on in this thread is appalling, but I should have expected it from a forum where men are always wrong and women can always be found an excuse.

Carl Beech who falsely accused a load of high profile men of participating in a paedophile ring and sexually abusing him got 18 years for perverting the course of justice in a pretty directly comparable case.

Exactly. And where true equivalence is found, she got off very lightly. There isn't even a whiff of misogyny in the handling or judging of this case. Quite the opposite.

It must be harder to accept the fact your daughter is a bare faced and determined liar than to accept the fact that she has been subjected to sexual abuse and grooming. The reality as we all know is that sexual abuse is rife so it is easier to believe that than anything else.

Me too. It’s so appalling and awful that I can’t think what would bring you to such a thing. I also feel awful for the men who were lied about and had their lives ruined. Truly horrific things

The thought that won’t go away is dear God she is guilty, right? Like there’s incontrovertible evidence? There must be because a jury wouldn’t convict unless there was zero doubt. But it still haunts me. I guess because the whole thing is so difficult to get your head around.

How many psychiatrists have to examine this woman? Two consultant psychiatrists have to provide evidence to the Court and I would be very surprised if she hasn’t seen others as well. Neither of the psychiatrists who gave evidence could diagnose her with a disorder. One of them was instructed by her own defence team so whilst still objective and providing their professional opinion will have been chosen specifically as someone who can provide robust enough evidence to stand up to cross examination whilst being more likely to be perhaps slightly less stringent with diagnosis than the expert instructed by the prosecution. The best the Defendant’s expert could come up with was CPTSD symptoms, and the Judge preferred the evidence of the Prosecution psychiatrist who did not concur. This issue has been thoroughly tried before the Courts. She is not mentally ill. She does not have a personality disorder.

I find it hard to believe that she could have injured herself in that way unless she was seriously mentally ill.

I agree.

But she did also wreck people's lives with her false accusations. And even though we'd like to think that every case is treated on its own merits, it may well be true that a future genuine victim of grooming and rape could be looked at askance in the light of this case.

So I think a sentence of four years in prison and four on licence is probably correct. Though I hope she also gets psychiatric help during this time.

Sorry what? You have a doubt about her guilt? Have you read ANY of the evidence? Her own sister gave evidence against her. The Defendant said she was being abducted and abused when she was actually on a mini break in Amsterdam with her sister and her sister’s partner. That’s just ONE piece of the evidence. Please don’t post such ignorant comments about a serious case unless you know exactly what you are talking about. You should ask mumsnet to delete your comment as it gives license to the Crazies in society who actually do think this woman is innocent.

100% this.

Justice for the male victims (rightly so).

Where is the justice for female victims (and children as well, come to that).

As someone who has been misdiagnosed by psychiatrists I do not have your faith in their infallibility.