Humax TV Tonight: Liar: The Fake Grooming Scandal tells the story of Ellie Williams

January 17, 2024

Liar: The Fake Grooming Scandal is on BBC Three tonight at 9pm. Stream it on iPlayer.

Twenty-two-year-old Ellie Williams was jailed for lying about being trafficked and raped by a vicious Asian grooming gang. Now, for the first time, the truth is laid open.

In May 2020, Ellie Williams posted an extraordinary Facebook message. ‘This is the hardest post I’m ever going to write…’ she began, before detailing horrifying sexual and physical assaults she said she’d suffered for years at the hands of an Asian grooming gang. Her post was accompanied by photos of her horrendous injuries – bruises, cuts, an eye swollen shut, a severed finger.

Ellie’s message quickly went viral, prompting a flood of support in her hometown of Barrow-in-Furness and beyond, as thousands reposted and demanded action. But, shockingly, it was Ellie herself who was arrested. She was charged with seven counts of perverting the course of justice and accused of making multiple false allegations.

The police struggled to contain the public anger – it seemed incomprehensible that a young woman had been arrested and remanded in jail for speaking out about rape, trafficking, and grooming; and a further damning example of police shortcomings in investigating this type of crime. Unable to talk about the case as it risked prejudicing the anticipated prosecution the town’s police station was besieged, local Asian-owned businesses were attacked, and demonstrations spread to other northern cities.

Ellie was convicted three years later after a meticulous police investigation and sentenced to eight years in prison. The judge described her account as ‘complete fiction’ – but its impact was real. The effect on the men she falsely accused of rape and trafficking was devastating.

Now, for the first time, the truth about Ellie’s claims can be laid open. This hour-long film features never-before-seen police footage of her and hears for the first time from the officers at the heart of the case, the specialist detectives who treated Ellie as a victim of serious crime until they realized they were investigating something very different. It examines why her allegations resonated, and the devastating impact they had in Barrow.