Victim of rape liar Eleanor Williams begs Preston judge not to send him back to jail for strangling girlfriend
Spending time on remand in Preston Prison left a 25-year-old man so traumatised he is now suffering from PTSD, the city’s Crown Court was told.
Jordan Trengove begged a judge not to send him back there after pleading guilty to trying to strangle his ex-partner in front of their young child.
Recorder Charlotte Deane handed him a suspended sentence but warned he will almost certainly go back behind bars if he offends again in the next 18 months.
The judge heard Trengove spent 73 days in HMP Preston after being wrongly accused of rape by serial fantasist Eleanor Williams.
Williams was jailed for eight-and-a-half years in 2023 by a judge in Preston for perverting the course of justice after it was discovered her claims of being trafficked by an Asian grooming gang in Barrow and also raped by three men, including Trengove, were all made up.
Williams was released from prison in January 2025, close to the halfway point of her sentence. She was released on early on licence and is subject to a five-year serious crime prevention order.
But when Trengove returned to the same Crown Court this week it was him in the dock - accused of assaulting a former girlfriend during a row at their home in Ulverston.
He pleaded guilty to the charge of intentional strangulation. But his defence barrister Eleanor Watson urged Recorder Deane to show leniency and not send him straight back to jail after his previous experience of being locked up there sharing a cell with a sex offender.
“My client found himself in Preston Prison at the age of 20 or 21 falsely accused of a plethora of offences including accusations of rape,” she said.
“It is very complicated. But according to the pre-sentence report (presented to the court by the Probation Service) there is no evidence in this case that Mr Trengove has suffered trauma.
“Well he is and he did. He was accused of offences and placed in jail. He said: ‘What I saw in person was completely unbelievable. I was traumatised by the experience’.
“He was brought up in court on trial. He has suffered trauma directly linked to the prison experience. The thought of going back to prison is utterly horrifying and terrifying (for him).
“My client has suffered a trauma which includes PTSD. He has in the past received counselling for various issues. For PTSD he has now been given his first appointment to deal with that in October.”
Recorder Deane was told Trengove had been in and on-off relationship with a woman between December 2019 and 2023 and they shared a child together. In September 2022 they were arguing at home and the row escalated.
She claimed Trengove started punching holes in a door and as she tried to stop him he fell in the bath. When he got out he grabbed her by the throat and pinned her against a cupboard with the baby just inches away.
She started crying and was scared. She asked him to let her go. As a result she suffered three bruises to her neck as well as soreness and a lump on her head. The injuries took two days to disappear.
Trengove told her he “simply saw red”. He apologised for his actions, but she still felt scared of him and felt he was unpredictable.
A large number of messages were exchanged between the couple in the days after the incident, some of which were apologetic, others were confrontational.
The ex-partner admitted the behaviour was out of character for him. In two witness impact statements she said he was “unpredictable” and after the assault her anxiety heightened. After she terminated the relationship she felt he would never let her go and she felt “emotionally and mentally drained”.
Miss Watson, defending, said her client had no previous offences of a violent nature. And she added she was “very surprised” to read the pre-sentence report which contained things she felt were “not very helpful to him.”
She said: “It was a one-off matter and it was very much out of character, as she (the ex-partner) said. It was a long and complicated relationship.”
Trengove, she said, had now moved away from the North West and had a stable address in Newcastle and the prospect of a permanent job in a demolition business.
Recorder Deane told Trengove that the author of the pre-sentence report before the court “felt there was a lack of empathy, but that is not what is being said about you by your counsel.
“You have been diagnosed with PTSD. You were accused of rape. I am told it had a (significant) effect on you. You are terrified of going back to prison.”
She gave him a 14-month jail sentence suspended for 18 months. He was also ordered to complete five rehabilitation activity days and ordered to do 200 hours unpaid work.
A restraining order banning him from having any contact with his victim was put in place for the next six years.