Cry-wolf rape girl Ellie Williams has harmed EVERY woman in the country says ROBERT TAYLOR

When Ellie Williams started her eight-year prison term yesterday it was vindication at last for the men she had falsely accused of rape. Her deranged allegations, believed by many in her local community in Cumbria, had turned the lives of those men into “hell on earth”. One of them spent 73 days in prison. Another had the word “Rapist” sprayed across his house. A further one found customers leaving his business in droves and friends deserting him.

The life of an innocent man wrongly believed to be a rapist is not worth living. It’s no surprise they all considered killing themselves.

But I suggest the victims of Williams’ crimes go way beyond those poor innocent men. I suggest that every single woman in this country is her victim.

Because every woman now knows that, thanks to Williams and other criminals like her, any rape victim will have to do that much more to prove the guilt of the perpetrator.

Studies show that as few as one percent of rape allegations lead to a conviction. That’s horrifyingly low, and people often wonder why. Well, it would be very much higher if we knew for certain that no woman ever invented allegations of the sort that has resulted in Williams being sent to prison.

Rape victims have to go through extraordinary suffering when they report the crime to the police. Criminal investigations are as stressful as they are intrusive, with the victim’s mobile phone and social media accounts scoured for evidence.

If the case goes to court, she has to relive it all over again, including awful cross-questioning, often with the perpetrator right there in front of her.

Nobody wants rape victims to go through such a ghastly ordeal, compounding the horror of the original crime. Yet it only happens because of women like Eleanor Williams. It only happens because there are some women, like Williams, who make up a pack of lies that destroy the lives of innocent men. And, as a result, all other women suffer.

For anyone who despairs that women are not automatically believed in cases of rape, they should point the finger of blame firmly at Williams.

For anyone who despairs at the low conviction rate, Williams is as much to blame as anyone.

For if we had automatically believed Williams, completely innocent men would now themselves be in prison for a crime they did not commit. Such men, in future, could be your father, brother, son or best friend. It doesn’t always happen to others.

So, why is it that people are curiously reluctant to comment on this case? Why the silence? Where’s the social media outrage? I suspect it’s because Williams' case trashes what some so desperately want to believe: that women are always telling the truth. I further suspect that such folk would be content to see a few innocent men go to prison, so long as it hikes the overall conviction rate.

I take a different view: rather than stay silent we must make as much noise as possible. We must celebrate Williams’ conviction, and ask whether an eight-year prison term is actually too lenient. Because she will probably be out in less than four. Because, if she’d been successful in her accusation, her innocent victims would have spent far longer than that in prison.

And, most importantly, because she has so undermined all other women throughout the country – especially those who are, or will be, victims of rape.

Only by making as much noise as possible about Williams’ diabolical crime do we deter others from inventing similar false allegations that destroy innocent lives. As a husband and father, I want all rapists convicted and sent to prison.

But I also want to ensure that no innocent man is ever forced to join them.