I was falsely accused of leading a grooming gang (2025)

Businessman Mo Ramzan was running errands on an ordinary summer’s day in 2019 when his life imploded.

In a co-ordinated police operation, he was pulled over by detectives as eight officers simultaneously woke his partner at home with a search warrant.

Handcuffed by the side of the road, Mo recalls members of the public filming as police checked the boot of his car.

‘I remember saying, “Who do you think I’ve got in there, Gandhi or something?” I couldn’t help myself; it seemed ridiculous. I had nothing to hide.’

But to his abject horror, Mo, known by everyone in his home town of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, as ‘Rammy’, was arrested on suspicion of being the head of an international grooming gang.

‘My head was spinning,’ he recalls. ‘I asked who was making these accusations but at this stage they wouldn’t give me any information.’

In fact, his accuser was an 18-year-old local girl called Eleanor Williams. She claimed that, alongside other men, Mo had sex with her from the age of 12 before trafficking her and dozens of other young girls around the North West and abroad.

Ellie even took to social media to broadcast details of her ‘ordeal’, alongside a series of graphic photographs showing herself covered in bruises, with a black eye and a partially severed finger.

Mo Ramzan, who was falsely accused of being the head of an international grooming gang, with his wife Nicola

Eleanor Williams was jailed for eight-and-a-half years after falsely claiming to have been the victim of an Asian grooming gang

Against a backdrop of horrific cases where, stymied by fears of accusations of racism, police had failed young white girls targeted by Asian grooming gangs in northern towns, it sparked a global campaign of solidarity and her story was shared online by public figures including Countdown’s Rachel Riley and the former Greater Manchester police detective Maggie Oliver, famous for her work bringing grooming gangs to justice.

It was even hijacked by the far-Right, with former English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson taking part in a ‘Justice For Ellie’ march.

However, it was all lies.

A police investigation revealed Williams - whose family Mo knew a little - had fabricated the entire thing, including drugging herself and self-inflicting terrible injuries.

In January 2023, she was convicted of nine counts of perverting the course of justice - including false rape claims against other innocent men - and jailed for eight and a half years.

By then, however, Mo had been through hell. The entire community had turned against him, bricks were thrown through the windows of his home and businesses, and he received countless death threats.

While another three white men falsely accused of rape and two other men of Asian heritage falsely accused of being in a grooming gang were all on the receiving end of abuse, Mo - as alleged gang leader - bore the brunt of it.

‘We put baseball bats and fire extinguishers in every single room, installed CCTV, and I would sit up till 8am watching it for my kids' safety,’ father-of-four Mo says in his first full interview about his horrendous ordeal.

‘For two years, I spent my life like that. I was extremely scared, because there are some very unhinged people out there. It felt like it would never end.’

And while it is now nearly two years since Williams was convicted, both Mo, 44, and his wife Nicola know that there are corners of Barrow – and beyond - where he remains under the fog of suspicion.

‘It’s the old no smoke without fire thing, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘People think, “Oh, well, maybe it’s not all true, but it’s got to come from somewhere”. There are definitely a group of people out there saying I’m still running this ring.’

Certainly, it is one of the more extraordinary tales of our time and now the subject of a compelling Channel 4 documentary, The Accused, which examines the devastating legacy of Williams’s claims on Mo and her other victims.

Some, including Mo, even tried to take their own lives and today he admits that only the intervention of a friend stopped him from ending it all.

‘It’s entirely possible that Mo wouldn’t be with us today,’ Nicola tells me, speaking for the first time. ‘He came very close. He had some desperate times.’

No wonder, then, that anger still simmers below the surface and the otherwise dapper and charismatic Mo breaks down in tears more than once as we speak.

‘I wouldn’t wish what I went through on anyone,’ he says.

By his side, Nicola says she never once doubted his innocence.

‘Never,’ she says firmly. It is a testament to their bond that, after eight years together, the couple married three years ago in the aftermath of Williams’s accusations.

‘The amount he had to go through - all of us had to go through - it’s a massive test of a relationship,’ says Nicola. ‘But we rallied, and it made us stronger.’

Manchester born and bred, Mo moved to Barrow 15 years ago in the wake of the breakdown of his first marriage, and quickly became a popular local figure, running a chain of restaurants, ice cream vans and rental properties.

‘Everyone knew “Rammy”,’ he says. ‘If I popped to Tesco to get a pint of milk it could take an hour as everyone would stop for a chat.’

Grooming gang fantasist Williams with her mother, Allison Johnston

Mo being interviewed outside Preston Crown Court after his name was finally cleared, as it took a jury just over three hours to find Williams guilty on all nine counts of perverting the course of justice

He met interior designer Nicola, 53, when she became a regular customer at one of his restaurants.

‘We were really good friends at first,’ Nicola recalls. Eleven years ago that friendship blossomed into romance and the couple set up home together, joined in 2018 by Mo’s two eldest sons from his marriage, Zak, 25, and 21-year-old Harry.

‘They came to Barrow for a fresh start - and then this happened, and it basically got ripped apart,’ Mo recalls.

‘This’ being the July day when he was pulled over and arrested while his house was subjected to a fingertip search.

‘They turned the place upside down,’ Nicola recalls. ‘They were bagging everything, they even removed all my underwear, but they wouldn’t tell me what he’d been arrested for.’

Only during one of his three interviews with police over the course of 36 hours in custody did Mo learn that his accuser was someone called Eleanor Williams - who he later realised he knew as ‘Ellie’.

‘I’d told police I didn’t know her, but then my sons found her on Instagram and I said “oh my God it’s Allison’s daughter.” I only met her once, at a family party, but I knew the rest of her family a bit,’ Mo recalls. ‘I thought it must be mistaken identity.

‘At that point I was on her side, thinking that these horrible things had happened but there was a horrible mix up.

‘Either way, if the police had done even a basic check of her claims, it would be clear it was a pack of lies when it came to my involvement.’

Released without charge on stringent bail conditions, word nonetheless travelled fast in the small town, and abuse quickly followed.

Mo’s windows were smashed and tenants moved out of his rental properties, fearing for their safety.

‘People threw stones, slashed my tyres, called me a “paedo” in the street,’ he recalls.

‘You find out who your real friends are,’ Nicola adds quietly. ‘Those close to me knew the truth.’

Even when, a week after his arrest, police removed all bail conditions, the abuse continued, including hate targeted at Mo’s sons. In the documentary, Harry poignantly confides that prior to this ordeal, he had never once experienced racism, believing it to be ‘historic’ – only for that to change almost overnight.

‘He got called all sorts of names,’ says Mo, his eyes filling with tears.

There seemed to be light at the end of the tunnel when, in early May 2020, police released a statement saying there was no evidence of a grooming gang in Barrow and revealing that Williams had been charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice.

‘We hoped that might draw a bit of a line,’ says Nicola.

Instead, events were about to get much, much worse.

Less than two weeks later, on May 20, 2020 – the country in Covid lockdown - Ellie, despite the charges against her, uploaded a post to Facebook.

‘This is the hardest post I’m ever going to write,’ she began. ‘I didn’t want to share this because I’m scared of the judgment that will come with it, it’s why I keep quite [sic] about what has happened to me, but people have asked me to tell my story.

‘When people have asked why I have had a black eye or bruises I’ve made every excuse, from falling over to banging it on a door.’

The truth, she suggested, was altogether darker.

‘Yesterday I was put into the back of car, taken to an address to have sex with 3 Asian men. Afterwards I was beaten because I was in debt to these men for not attending ‘party’s’ [sic] for over 7 weeks due to coronavirus. The organisers of the party decided to beat me to teach me a lesson.’

She said she had been burned, slashed with a knife and hit with a hammer, the post accompanied by a series of shocking photos of her ‘injuries’, including one where her eye was so badly swollen she couldn’t open it.

Within 20 minutes of the post, Williams had been rearrested and remanded in custody - but her inflammatory post nevertheless went viral.

It was shared more than 100,000 times and a ‘Justice For Ellie’ Facebook page attracted tens of thousands of followers, while an online fundraiser raised more than £20,000 for a private prosecution.

Justice For Ellie merchandise, including T-shirts, went on sale, while one of Williams’s old teachers even created a purple elephant logo in support of her – a nod to an elephant necklace she wore at school - which, within a few days, adorned nearly every house in Mo’s street.

‘I’ve lived in that street all my life, my mum lives at the top,’ says Nicola. ‘I’ve grown up with these people, they knew me and Rammy. So to look out of the window and see all the posters,’ she trails off, shaking her head.

While Mo was not named in the post – and despite the fact Williams had been charged with perverting the course of justice - fingers quickly pointed his way. Indeed, many accused the police of colluding with Asian gangs and being part of a ‘cover-up’.

‘It was trial by social media,’ he says. ‘I watched as people deleted me from social media and crossed the street to avoid me.’

The situation also provided perfect fodder for the far-Right, and on June 6, former English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson - who had previously pledged to give 100 per cent of his income to victims of Asian grooming gangs - visited Barrow to take part in a Justice For Ellie march.

‘There was a lot of racism, pure and simple,’ says Mo. ‘I think it uncovered a seam that had been hidden.’

Either way, the effects were devastating. The death threats escalated – Mo calculates he received about 500 – and he had to close more of his businesses.

‘I thought, what kind of life is destined for me? I saw a future with no money, living off handouts from my family,’ he says.

At one point, he smashed a bottle over his head and was about to use the broken glass to slash his neck, but thankfully the swift intervention of a friend stopped him.

‘Two seconds later and it would have been a different story,’ he says.

Moreover, with the police unable to reveal their dossier of evidence against Williams to avoid prejudicing her forthcoming trial, Mo was left to fight for himself.

The £20,000 Range Rover Evoque owned by the family of rape fantasist Williams was destroyed in a suspected arson attack after she had been jailed forperverting the course of justice

‘I started following all these far-Right people, compiling evidence they were inflaming things,’ he says. ‘I had records of everything.’

Finally, in January 2023, Williams’s case came to court.

Along with her self-inflicted injuries - caused by a hammer she had bought from Tesco - it was revealed she had travelled to places such as Blackpool, booking hotel rooms where she claimed she had been abused but where, in fact, she had watched YouTube videos alone.

She also had six mobile phones which she used to set up phoney accounts in the names of her ‘abusers’ and from which she sent messages.

‘The lengths she went to were mind-boggling,’ says Mo, who along with Nicola attended Preston Crown Court every day.

The court also heard evidence that it was impossible for Mo to have been where Williams claimed. Passport records showed he had never been to the Balearics, despite the fact she said he had trafficked her to Ibiza. And his bank card was being used in Barrow B&Q when she maintained he’d taken her to Amsterdam and sold her to the highest bidder at a brothel.

Ultimately, it took the jury just over three hours to find Williams guilty on all nine counts of perverting the course of justice.

Today, having been released from prison after time served, she is understood to be living away from Barrow, although family members, some of whom supported her claims, still live locally.

Read More KEMI BADENOCH: A public inquiry is needed to expose those who turned a blind eye to grooming gangs

‘We have to see them around,’ Nicola says grimly.

The most troubling question of all, of course, is why did she do it? A troubled girl who had run away from home countless times prior to her allegations, one psychologist testified in court that she displayed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Mo and Nicola do not claim to have the answers, although both show her laudable compassion.

‘I don’t hate her,’ says Mo. ‘I feel sorry for her. My daughter is the same age, I’ve got nieces that age. You have to ask yourself how she got to where she got to?

‘I’m angry with the way the system operated, and that the people who fuelled her lies have not been held accountable. And I’m angry that genuine victims might not be believed in future because of her.’

Those sentiments were echoed by Williams’s former champion Maggie Oliver, who later said that while she ‘felt’ for the men falsely accused, the case had left her with ‘many uncomfortable feelings’ and fears that genuine victims would be silenced.

Nicola meanwhile feels that, in her own way, Williams is a victim too. ‘But that doesn’t change the fact she put us through hell,’ she says. ‘Justice had to be done.’

The Accused: The Fake Grooming Scandal is available on Channel 4 on demand.

I was falsely accused of leading a grooming gang (2025)

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