A woman has appeared at Preston Crown Court accused of fabricating evidence to frame men for rape, including inflicting severe hammer blows on herself.

Prosecutors claim 21-year-old Eleanor Williams, from Barrow-in-Furness, is a “serial liar” who used false text messages and Snapchat conversations to bolster claims she had been trafficked and raped by multiple men.

Crown Prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford KC told the jury although Ms Williams was on one occasion discovered with multiple wounds on her body after going missing, the prosecution claims “the injuries had been self-inflicted with a hammer.”

Ms Williams faces seven counts of perverting the course of justice. It is claimed she made false allegations of rape and violence against her between 2017 and 2020 to work colleagues, medical professionals, health workers and the police.

She is accused of faking evidence such as text messages on mobile phones and social media in which her alleged abusers and traffickers appeared to discuss or admit their supposed crimes, as well as messages in which she and other supposed victims appeared to discuss being trafficked or sexually exploited.

The crown prosecutor told the court Ms Williams altered the names of men on her mobile phone to make it appear she was being contacted by men with Asian names about sex.

It was suggested she set up Snapchat accounts herself in the names of a man she claimed had attacked her so she could send confessional or damning messages to herself.

The jury was told as a result of the allegations people were arrested and interviewed, and one man was charged and kept in custody for three months.

Mr Sandiford said police initially investigated several men before realising Ms Williams’s stories were suspicious.

In 2019, Ms Williams was arrested for perverting the course of justice and released pending further investigations, the jury was told.

Mr Sandiford said: “Unfortunately, the fact that her lie and false allegations had been exposed by police in July 2019 did not cause her to stop.

“Instead, she continued to fabricate evidence to try and make it appear that her false claims of being a victim of trafficking and sexual exploitation were true.”

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On 19 May 2020, Ms Williams failed to return home as expected and was reported to the police as missing.

Mr Sandiford says when police eventually found her “she had significant injuries to her face, her body and her limbs and she had a badly cut finger.

“She told police that she had been taken to a house in Barrow, gang raped, beaten and attacked with a knife causing the cut to her finger.”

The next day the defendant made similar claims in a public social media post she made on Facebook.

Mr Sandiford added: “The police made enquiries, as they were bound to do, into what Miss Williams had alleged and they established none of it was true.

“The police established that her injuries had been self-inflicted with a hammer police recovered in fields near to where they had found Ms Williams on the night, she had failed to return home.”

The prosecution says it does not accept Ms Williams was a victim of sexual offences or trafficking in the way she suggests. But, even if she had been, that would not give her a defence to pervert the course of justice.

Ms Williams denies the allegations. Her defence team is expected to outline their argument after more opening statements from the prosecution on Wednesday.