A mental health expert testified in Steven Galloway’s defamation trial that she worried his accuser might harm herself shortly before her allegations surfaced.
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A mental health expert continued testifying Monday in Steven Galloway’s defamation lawsuit, describing concerns about the woman who accused the author and former University of British Columbia (UBC) professor of rape and sexual assault.
Mandi Gray, now an assistant professor at Trent University, said she was concerned about the potential for self-harm by the woman known as A.B., shortly before the allegations against Galloway came to light in November 2015. Gray said A.B. had talked about a “suicide plan” and expressed “suicidal ideation” during a phone call, adding that it was not a clinical assessment.
Gray said she described herself as a “safe person” for A.B. and recalled that A.B. became upset because Galloway had called her multiple times in a short time span. Gray testified that she told A.B. something like, “I know you've been weighing whether or not you want to report, and now there are these voice mails and this unwanted contact, this could be a time.”
Gray said A.B. told her she had initially tried to report the claims to a UBC official in 2013, but that it was, “to put it mildly, an unpleasant experience.” She testified that A.B. did not want to pursue further steps “at that time, due to the lack of institutional infrastructure that they could communicate what the next steps would be.”
Gray also testified that a retired judge hired by UBC later found the assault allegations against Galloway unsubstantiated. The university fired Galloway, who has said the claims destroyed his career.
The court heard that A.B. is not testifying, citing mental health struggles. It 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. During Monday’s testimony, Gray cried as she said it had been “so hard to watch” A.B.’s mental health deteriorate leading up to the trial.
Gray previously testified that she regretted some of her online posts about Galloway. Her lawyer, Vanshika Dhawan, told the court last Thursday that Gray’s client was no longer defending some of her online statements as responsible communications or arguing they were made honestly under “qualified privilege,” while still defending certain statements as fair comment.
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