Amy Hamm: Galloway’s accuser pledged to ‘destroy’ him, ex-husband testifies

The woman who accused bestselling author and former University of British Columbia (UBC) professor Steven Galloway of rape was sexting with her (now) ex-husband throughout the night of one of the alleged assaults. 

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Galloway’s accuser and former affair partner, known only as A.B. due to a publication ban, claimed to have been assaulted in Galloway’s office at UBC on May 5, 2011. Her ex-husband testified in B.C. Supreme Court Monday, that he and A.B. messaged back and forth the whole night. Several of these text messages, which were shown in court, were sexual in nature. 

“Je ne peux pas attendre pour obtenir de vous sous les draps à Paris. Im allant vous faire hurler,” he texted to A.B. at 10:12 p.m. A rough translation would read, “I can’t wait to get you under the sheets in Paris. I am going to make scream.”

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A.B. replied to him, two messages later, at 10:18 p.m.: “Sounds sexy and dirty moi aussi mi amor.”  

The allegations against Galloway were unproven and a judge who investigated the matter on behalf of the university found the assaults did not occur. A.B. is one of four defendants in the defamation trial, while several others settled out of court with Galloway in September.

A.B.’s ex-husband is not being named in order to avoid identifying her.

The playful text messages between the married pair went on well past midnight. This is the same night that A.B. claimed she woke up in Galloway’s office, naked and with semen coming out of her vagina, while Galloway was watching a hockey game on his computer.  

Galloway previously testified that none of this had happened — and that the two were never in his office that night, nor was it possible to stream hockey games online in 2011. His lawyer earlier showed the court text messages that placed Galloway at a pub on UBC campus during the hockey game.  

Justice Neena Sharma placed part of A.B.’s ex-spouse’s testimony under a publication ban, the reason for which I cannot describe without violating that ban. 

Like Galloway, the man comes across as psychologically scarred by his relationship with A.B. His affect fluctuated between downcast and irritable in court, while he shifted uncomfortably in the witness stand. He testified that he had been in a relationship with A.B. since the late 90s, and that the two married in 2011, separated in 2014, and divorced three years later. He said he did not know that A.B. and Galloway had an affair until it hit the newspapers, though he had suspicions.  

“She told me that I was being paranoid and crazy and that nothing was going on,” he told the court.  

He described how A.B. and Galloway became friends and how the three met together socially. He said he received hockey tickets from Galloway on several occasions. A.B., he said, went from initially complimenting Galloway as a brilliant writer to later “belittling” the man to him in small ways, such as by referring to him as “nerdy.” The ex-husband also told the court that A.B. brought up a “boat incident,” describing how his ex-wife told him that Galloway had placed his hands around her neck while the two were alone on Galloway’s boat — but that she did not want him to confront Galloway or go to the police.  

“I got quite angry of course, and first and foremost wanted to know what she was doing on his boat alone,” he said. He testified that A.B. convinced him not to confront Galloway.  

“She said she was going to destroy him,” he told the court. “Pretty sure she said ‘don’t worry about it, I’m going to destroy him’… I really wanted to go and deal with it firsthand, but she could be very persuasive and didn’t want me to — so I didn’t.” 

His testimony also included a description of how A.B. demanded that he provide a ride home from a two-week writer workshop in Banff, though she was originally supposed to drive home with Galloway. Instead, A.B. requested that her then-husband come and pick her up that same day, he said, because Galloway was allegedly being “an asshole” and “not paying attention to her.” 

He also testified that A.B., after the two were divorced, once told him that Galloway “should be lucky that guns are not legal in Canada — because she would shoot him.” This did not, he said, “sound like the woman I fell in love with.” 

He was briefly cross examined by A.B.’s lawyer regarding the timeline of negative statements that A.B. made to him about Galloway.  

Monday’s court proceedings began with Galloway’s lawyer calling CBC journalist Ronna Syed as a witness.  

Syed appeared remotely and testified about her work on a 2015 Fifth Estate documentary, “School of Secrets,” about the controversy surrounding sexual assault allegations against a UBC PhD student. Syed said that she was introduced to A.B. while working on this project and eventually met with A.B. in person. During the meeting, Syed said, she was surprised when A.B. asked her not to take any notes — which was “a first” in her journalism career. Syed detailed how A.B. did not want to appear in the documentary due to her alleged fear of Galloway, “a very powerful and influential man with very powerful and influential friends.” Syed said that she and a CBC colleague decided that there was “no way” A.B.’s story would feature in the documentary.  

In November 2015, Syed was copied on an email A.B. sent to the president’s office at UBC, containing her allegations against Galloway. The email was presented to Syed in court. She said that it had “really surprised” her to receive this email, as A.B. had been so fearful and insistent that Syed not reveal that the two had ever spoken.  

Galloway’s lawyer also presented Syed with an email A.B. sent to UBC faculty members Annabel Lyon and Keith Maillard (both of whom were defendants in Galloway’s suit but settled before trial). In this email, A.B. claimed that the CBC had put her evidence against Galloway through their legal team, and that this team believed her evidence was “damning.” A.B. also claimed, in the email, that the CBC wanted to use her alleged rape as a lead story in their documentary.  

Syed testified that she never told A.B. that CBC’s legal department was looking at her story, nor did they.  

Other witnesses on Monday included UBC professor and faculty association president Timothy Taylor, and former UBC creative writing student David Mount. 

Taylor testified to his attendance at an “unprecedented” November 2015 faculty meeting at the private home of Linda Svendsen, another UBC creative writing professor. Taylor said that faculty discussed A.B.’s accusations against Galloway and the “deputization” of former student Chelsea Rooney to “poll the community to see if other people had similar assault stories.” Taylor told the court that at the time he had no training in how to respond to sexual assault allegations and felt that the meeting was wholly inappropriate. 

Lastly, Mount, a former friend of A.B., described her as someone who “did whatever she could to ingratiate herself with faculty members.” He testified that he was present at the same off-campus book reading that A.B. and Galloway attended separately on the night of May 5, 2011, after the hockey game, when A.B. accused Galloway of assaulting her. Mount said that A.B. “was happy, lucid, and well put together.” 

National Post

Disclosure: I had a prior friendship with Chelsea Rooney, a former defendant in this case, who settled ahead of the trial.

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