Trial to start where former UBC professor alleges defamation

A trial is expected to start Monday in B.C. Supreme Court where author and former professor Steven Galloway says he was defamed by false accusations of sexual assault.

Galloway was a tenured professor and the chair of the creative writing program at the University of British Columbia when rumours swirled and spread online that he had assaulted one of his students.

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He was never charged, but was fired, though a report that was later produced for the university by former judge Mary Ellen Boyd concluded the accusations against Galloway were unsubstantiated.

The defendants in the defamation suit, including his accuser known only as A.B., and those who repeated the allegations online, took the defamation case to the Supreme Court of Canada, claiming their accusations were protected speech.

The High Court refused to hear the case, after a lower court said that if the defendants’ arguments held, “there would be no legal consequences of any kind” to publicly calling someone a rapist.

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Chelsea Rooney, one of the defendants in the case, issued a lengthy apology to Galloway over the weekend, saying she was genuinely sorry for the part she played in causing harm to him.