Amy Hamm: Galloway's accuser won't defend rape allegation, blames others for spreading it around - National Post

Copy URL Facebook Linked In X (Twitter) Loading account options Sign In Manage Account Close account menu Sign Out By Amy Hamm November 3, 2026 at 12:58 p.m. Last Updated: November 3, 2026 at 1:01 p.m. Steven Galloway’s accuser began her defence argument in B.C. Supreme Court Monday.

“There’s no dispute from us that allegations of sexual assault and rape are serious,” A.B.’s lawyer, Arden Beddoes, told the court in his opening statement.

A.B., whose name is protected by a publication ban, previously withdrew the defence of “justification,” or truth, though she has also not said that her rape allegations against Galloway are false. She will not be appearing in court due to cited mental health concerns.

As per Beddoes’ opening statement, A.B.’s defence is about damages. She intends to argue about the limitation period of certain allegedly defamatory statements made in 2015, which damages are “legally and causally attributable” to her versus other defendants (including ones who settled with Galloway before trial) or the University of British Columbia (UBC), and A.B.’s liability for “third party republications.”

Regarding third party republications, Beddoes told the court, A.B. intends to argue about whether she authorized republication (of defamatory statements) and whether those republications were “natural and probable” or “reasonably foreseeable.”

Put simply, A.B. plans to argue that she couldn’t have known what her unproven allegations — which came during the growing MeToo movement — would do to Galloway’s life and reputation, nor did she, she says, authorize others to spread defamatory statements around the globe.

“We’ll take the court through why we say that just can’t all be put at the feet of our client,” said Beddoes.

Galloway, who had an affair with A.B. from 2011 to 2013, was fired from his job as a University of British Columbia (UBC) creative writing professor and program chair in June 2016. A.B.’s unproven sexual assault allegations went public in November 2015 and derailed Galloway’s career and personal life. Retired judge Mary Ellen Boyd, hired by UBC to independently investigate the allegations, found, on a balance of probabilities, that no sexual assault had occurred and that the claims were unsubstantiated.

Beddoes said that A.B.’s accusations “preceded wider publicity” but that their viral, global reach was not foreseeable to her — including the way UBC handled them or treated Galloway. Beddoes said A.B. will also argue that she was “not instrumental” in directing UBC’s response to her rape allegations, as Galloway’s legal team has previously told the court.

“To go from what our client said to those individuals in November 2015 and say it’s foreseeable all of that would happen? We say that’s a bridge too far,” Beddoes told the court.

In previous weeks, the court heard how A.B. hired a lawyer and demanded more than $3 million in damages from UBC. It is not publicly known if UBC settled with her. A.B. also demanded and received $30,000 in UBC bursary funds after graduating, which Galloway, during his testimony, characterized as fraudulent.

Additionally, A.B. created a 2018 public art exhibit about a “rape narrative” which, Galloway previously testified, clearly identified him as a perpetrator. At the time of his testimony, members of the public could purchase a signed book of A.B.’s artwork.

Earlier Monday, Beddoes was chastised by Justice Neena Sharma — who at one point threw her hands in the air in apparent frustration — during cross examination of Galloway’s final witness, literary agent Kevin Hanson.

Hanson, the former president of Simon & Schuster Canada, was qualified as an expert witness to testify regarding Galloway’s lost earning potential, which he told the court is several millions of dollars. Hanson appeared via videoconference from Toronto.

During his lengthy cross, Beddoes repeatedly asked Hanson about his methodology, whether it was reasonable to use author Miriam Toews as a sole comparator for Galloway’s thwarted career trajectory, and whether he adequately considered the relative sales underperformance of The Confabulist, Galloway’s 2015 novel. In one of his questions, Beddoes referred to Galloway as being “one for four” in terms of publishing successful novels, a characterization that Sharma dismissed as Beddoes’ non-expert opinion.

At one point, Justice Sharma instructed Hanson to mute the court’s audio so she could address Beddoes without him hearing. “You were leading (Hanson) down a path, and you were suggesting things to him in your questions, and then he wants to explain some of the things said in the question, and then you’re complaining he’s explaining things,” Sharma said. “If you don’t want him to do that, don’t ask the question.”

Beddoes then told Justice Sharma that he intended to go on and point out that what Hanson testified in response to him was not contained in his expert report.

“You have adduced the evidence in front of me. So, if you’re going to ask me to ignore an expert’s evidence, then don’t adduce it in the first place,” Sharma said with a raised voice.

“He’s the expert, not you,” she later added. She then instructed Beddoes to word his questions more carefully, without “propositions or assumptions that (Hanson) may or may not agree with.”

There was a crowd of nearly 50 people in court Monday morning, at least half of them part of a student group from Simon Fraser University (SFU), as one student told me during a break in court. These students were in attendance with SFU professor El Chenier, who teaches both history and gender, sexuality, and women’s studies.

Chenier made a Nov. 1 Facebook post encouraging the public to attend Galloway’s trial in support of A.B. and Mandi Gray, another defendant.

“Wear white to court!… I have been arguing that AB is a blank canvas on which all manner of misogynist stereotypes are being cast. For that reason I am going to wear white to the court. I invite you to do the same — just a white shirt, perhaps,” Chenier posted, along with a stock photo of women in “we will not be silenced” and “the future is female” t-shirts.

Approximately two thirds of the public gallery left during the lunch break, and before A.B.’s defence began.

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