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Author and former University of British Columbia professor Steven Galloway, centre, and his wife Katie Wagner, left, leave B.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Bestselling author Steven Galloway told court Wednesday allegations that he sexually assaulted a former student three times were pure fiction and that he didn’t learn of the details until after he was suspended as head of the creative writing program at the University of British Columbia.
After nearly 11 years, Mr. Galloway testified in open court about the allegations as part of a defamation case he brought against the woman, with whom he had a two-year affair, and three others he accuses of defaming him. He called the allegations “absolutely” false.
“I was shocked to find she was saying that,” he testified.
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Mr. Galloway was suspended by UBC in November, 2015 and the university’s public announcement of the “serious allegations” against him was highly publicized. It roiled the Canadian literary community for years and the author maintains it cost him his reputation and his livelihood.
His defamation suit originally included almost two dozen defendants, most of whom settled. The woman who made the allegations, known as A.B. because of a publication ban on her name, is joined as a defendant by three others.
The trial will not hear testimony from A.B. Her lawyer, Arden Beddoes, has told court she withdraws her defences of truth and fair comment, but does not admit to spreading lies about her former romantic partner. Mr. Beddoes has said A.B. has twice tried to kill herself in recent months because of the stress of the lawsuit.
Court heard Wednesday about three instances in which A.B. alleged that she was sexually assaulted.
In the first, she said Mr. Galloway invited her to play a daytime game of cards on his 30-foot sailboat at his False Creek marina in the spring of 2011. She alleged he grabbed her by the throat, kissed her and threw her up against the bed in the bow when she tried to escape. She said she later managed to leave the vessel.
The woman alleged he said to her: “See, that wasn’t so bad.”
Mr. Galloway said this incident was a fabrication.
“That never happened, there was never a day in March of 2011 that we went to that boat,” he testified. “It’s hard to know how to dismantle it because the entire story is just fictional there aren’t facts to dispute.”
He told the court that if he had thrown the woman through the small opening to the berth, he would have injured her badly.
He also testified that later in their affair she asked him to stay on his boat because her husband’s violent relative was coming to stay at their house.
“It’s inconceivable that a person who reported thinking she was going to be murdered and thrown overboard would speak of the boat in subsequent years as a safe space,” he said.
In the second incident, the court heard that A.B. said she got drunk on tequila shots bought by Mr. Galloway at a creative writing program party. He then offered her a ride home but first said he wanted to go to his office to change out of his party clothes.
The court also heard A.B. told Mary Ellen Boyd, the retired judge hired by UBC to look into the matter, that she remembers him straddling over her with his penis exposed and after she objected, he backed off.
Mr. Galloway testified that he didn’t think he offered to drive her home as they lived in opposite directions, but he did recall going back to his office where they had sex “with full consent from both parties.”
In a third incident, A.B. alleged that prior to a scheduled reading on campus by the author Miriam Toews in May, 2011, she found herself naked and hunched on the floor in Mr. Galloway’s office. He had had sex with her and was watching a hockey game on his computer, she told Ms. Boyd.
But Mr. Galloway testified he was not in the room and text messages shown in court indicated that at that time he was watching the game at a campus pub.
Court heard Ms. Boyd found Mr. Galloway had sexually harassed A.B. because of the power differential between the two of them and A.B.’s belief that opportunities in the creative writing program were tied to their sexual relationship.
But Mr. Galloway testified he became program chair after their relationship ended in 2013 and that any power imbalance between them was “extremely minor.”
He said that during his 10-hour interview with Ms. Boyd, only about 10 minutes was spent on the sexual harassment allegation. He said his main focus was refuting the sexual assault allegations.