Galloway defamation trial hears accuser said he was being reframed as a “benign lover”

The Story

The defamation lawsuit brought by author Steven Galloway against his accuser and others heard in B.C. Supreme Court that the woman known as A.B. felt media coverage was “dangerous” because it reframed him as a “benign lover.”

Gray testified that she received an email from A.B. in December 2016, about a year after the rape and sexual-assault allegations against Galloway became public. According to Gray’s testimony, the email said media reports described Galloway’s admission of a two-year affair without also mentioning claims that he had sexually assaulted her.

Galloway’s lawyer, Daniel Burnett, read parts of the email aloud during Gray’s cross-examination. Burnett told the court the email said: “This is dangerous and can’t be ignored because it’s a total reframing of a dangerous sexual predator into a benign lover.” The email also said, “He’s being exonerated in the news.”

Gray also told the court she was aware that A.B. was unable to work and had struggled with mental health, and that there was an exchange of money from the University of B.C. to help offset legal costs and therapy so she could meaningfully participate in a review of the allegations conducted by retired judge Mary Ellen Boyd.

Gray said she does not know how much A.B. received, adding that it “sounded like every dollar” went to therapy or her legal counsel. She said she did not know more than that.

The court has heard that Boyd was hired by the university to review the allegations and found the assault claims unsubstantiated. The proceedings also learned last month that A.B. was no longer asserting in her defence that Galloway assaulted her, but that she reported he had done so.

Galloway has previously told the court that he and A.B. had a two-year affair that ended in 2013, and he has said the allegations destroyed his career. He is suing A.B., Gray and others, alleging they defamed him by publishing the unproven allegations on social media and elsewhere.

Gray agreed during Monday’s testimony that she told A.B. she had reached out to media about her own rape allegation during her studies at York University, describing the comments as putting “an option on the table” that was beneficial in her own experience.

Gray also testified about her concern for A.B.’s mental health around the time the allegations surfaced. She told the court she had become a “safe person” for A.B. and that A.B. discussed a “suicide plan” and expressed “suicidal ideation” during a phone call, though Gray said it was not a clinical assessment.

Gray said she recalled telling A.B. that she had been weighing whether or not to report, and that voicemail messages and unwanted contact could be “a time” to consider reporting. Gray testified that A.B. told her she had tried in 2013 to report the matter to a University of B.C. official but described that experience as “unpleasant,” and that she did not want to go further at that time because of a lack of “institutional infrastructure” for next steps.

Gray told the court she cried as she testified Monday, saying it was “so hard to watch” A.B.’s mental health deteriorate in the lead-up to the trial in Vancouver. She said A.B. attempted suicide in February and was hospitalized after another attempt in June.

A.B. is not testifying in the Galloway defamation trial, citing mental health struggles. Gray testified that she regretted some of her online posts about Galloway and said her lawyer had earlier told the court Gray was no longer defending certain online statements as responsible communications or as made under “qualified privilege,” while still defending certain statements as fair comment.