Because tales were told, stories more fictitious than the novels Steven Galloway wrote when he was still one of this country’s most acclaimed authors.
asserted
he → tell → authors
Before his ordeal as an accused rapist rendered him, he says, incapable of ever writing anything again.
asserted
he → accuse → anything
“I just can’t do it anymore.
asserted
I → do → it
I wish I could.
uncertain
I → wish → ?
I loved doing it.
asserted
I → do → it
It was the greatest part of my life — it was the only thing that made me, me.”
asserted
me → make → life
So he’s selling boats.
asserted
he → sell → boats
The reckoning that Galloway sought for eight years is underway in a Vancouver courtroom where he spent most of last week in the witness stand, testifying to the torment, the despair, the ostracism and isolation of his Kafkaesque nightmare.
asserted
he → seek → nightmare
Galloway was never criminally charged.
asserted
Galloway → charge → ?
But he lost his job as chair of UBC’s creative-writing program, was silenced by confidentiality agreements the university pressed him to sign following what in retrospect must have been a botched or at least aggressively skewed investigation, and was mercilessly savaged on social media.
asserted
what → lose → media
All of it with not a shred of evidence that he’d ever sexually assaulted anybody.
asserted
he → assault → anybody
An independent investigation by a respected retired judge in 2016 concluded that, on the balance of probabilities, Galloway had not committed sexual assault or physical assault.
asserted
Galloway → retire → assault
Instead, there were lies, a witch-hunt and the steaming pile of vomit that is the Internet unhinged amidst a firestorm of outrage.
asserted
that → be → outrage
Galloway is finally getting his day, his voice restored in the defamation lawsuit brought against his accuser and three other defendants.
asserted
voice → get → accuser
Originally, there was a dirty dozen of them, but nine settled before the trial began.
asserted
trial → be → them
The primary orchestrator of Galloway’s vilification was a woman, one of his former students and an author herself, and a friend of the accuser—known only as A.B., her identity protected at this time but possibly not forever—who circulated the allegations online as fact.
uncertain
who → know → fact
Chelsea Rooney tied Galloway to a 2015 university memo sent to students, faculty and staff, in which a professor was suspended over “serious allegations.”
asserted
professor → tie → allegations
It was Rooney who, donning her Inquisition mantle, beat the bushes to gather more condemnatory material against Galloway.
asserted
who → don → Galloway
On the eve of trial a fortnight ago, Rooney posted a grovelling apology online for the immeasurable damage she caused, conceding that her grasp of the “believe women” mantra promulgated by the MeToo movement was shaky and “misguided.”
asserted
grasp → post → movement
“My position at the time was that an allegation was all that a person should require to come to the conclusion that an accused person was guilty, and I accused those who disagreed with this of doing harm to survivors,” she wrote.
asserted
she → require → survivors
“I should have understood that supporting people who come forward about sexual violence does not require, and cannot justify, acting in ways that may lead others to conclude that unproven allegations are true or failing to give the person accused a fair opportunity to be heard and considered.”
Oh, right.
uncertain
allegations → understand → opportunity
That little thing called innocent until proven guilty and due process.
asserted
thing → call → ?
Rooney’s ill-deeds reverberated within the university’s decision to suspend Galloway and then fire him.
asserted
deeds → reverberate → him
“I know that nothing I say now can undo the harm or give back the years affected by these events,” Rooney concluded, “but I am genuinely sorry for the part I played in causing that harm.
asserted
I → know → harm
Yet Rooney was among the defendants who fought the defamation case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which tossed the appeal.
asserted
which → fight → appeal
Maybe she was suddenly blinded by the blight of her zealotry, or maybe it explains why her name doesn’t appear in the winnowed list of defendants, reduced to four.
asserted
name → blind → four
That encompasses A.B., whose lawyer stood up in court on Day 4 to say that his client was withdrawing her defences of truth and fair comment, but not admitting that she spread lies about Galloway.
asserted
she → encompass → Galloway
The amended defence now maintains that she “reported sexual assaults,” not that she was sexually assaulted.
asserted
she → amend → assaults
Arden Beddoes told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Neena Sharma that A.B. isn’t making an admission that the claims were false.
uncertain
claims → tell → admission
This was a confusing distinction debated between Beddoes and the judge.
asserted
This → debate → Beddoes
Sharma, taken aback, said she was “unconvinced…that there’s no difference in a defamation action between the court presuming falsity as a matter of law and making a finding of falsity on the evidence.”
asserted
court → take → evidence
Adding, withdrawing the defence of justification without admitting the statements were false “doesn’t make falsity irrelevant.”
asserted
falsity → add → justification
Every journalist knows that the ultimate defence against libel is truth.
asserted
defence → know → libel
A.B. has chosen to sever truth from falsity.
asserted
A.B. → choose → falsity
We’ll see how that dancing on a pin of semantics rolls out.
asserted
dancing → see → semantics
Galloway has repeatedly testified that none of the three instances of alleged sexual assault ever happened and A.B.‘s “entire story is fictional.”
asserted
story → testify → assault
What Galloway has admitted is that he and the woman, both married at the time, had a consensual sexual relationship, which he deeply regrets, and their split was “amicable.”
asserted
split → admit → which
Or so he thought until broadsided and sacked by the university.
asserted
he → think → university
Court has heard that, in a 2017 statement of claim filed by her then-lawyer, A.B. was seeking $3 million in damages, alleging negligence and other offences by the institution.
uncertain
A.B. → hear → institution
It’s still unknown whether UBC ever paid out any portion of that demand, but it did give her a bursary of $30,000, to which Galloway says A.B. was never entitled because she’d already graduated.
asserted
she → ’ → which
…and 5 more, not listed.
The Aporia
