Galloway’s accuser objected to his media depiction as ‘benign lover’

VANCOUVER — The trial of Steven Galloway’s defamation lawsuit has heard the woman who accused the author of rape and sexual assault — allegations he denies — felt he was being “exonerated in the news” after publicly admitting instead to a two-year affair.

Mandi Gray, a defendant in Galloway’s lawsuit, recalled receiving an email from Galloway’s accuser in December 2016, about a year after the allegations against the former University of British Columbia professor came to light.

The email, read aloud in B.C. Supreme Court as part of Gray’s cross-examination by Galloway’s lawyer, Daniel Burnett, said media reports contained Galloway’s admission to an affair without mentioning claims of sexual assault against him.

“This is dangerous and can’t be ignored because it’s a total reframing of a dangerous sexual predator into a benign lover,” Burnett said, reading the email from the woman known as A.B., whose name is subject to a publication ban.

“He’s being exonerated in the news,” the email said.

Galloway has previously told the trial in Vancouver that he and A.B. had a two-year affair that ended in 2013.

“I remain ashamed of having had an affair period, let alone an affair with a student at the university I was at,” he told an earlier hearing.

Retired judge Mary Ellen Boyd was hired by the University of B.C. to look into the allegations against Galloway and found the assault claims unsubstantiated.

The court learned last month that A.B. was no longer asserting in her defence that Galloway assaulted her, rather that she reported he had done so.

The university fired Galloway, the former chair of its creative writing program and author of novels including “The Cellist of Sarajevo.”

Gray testified she was aware that A.B. had been unable to work because of mental health struggles and “there was an exchange of money from (the university) to help offset legal costs and her therapy so she could meaningfully participate in the Boyd investigation.”

Gray said she doesn’t know how much A.B. received.

“It sounded like every dollar of that either went to therapy or her legal counsel and that’s all I know.”

Galloway has said the claims destroyed his career. He is suing A.B., Gray and others, alleging they defamed him by publishing the unproven allegations on social media and elsewhere.

Gray also agreed Monday that she told A.B. she had reached out to media about her own allegation of rape during her studies at York University, characterizing the comments as putting “an option on the table that was beneficial in my own experience.”

The court has previously heard Gray, now an assistant professor at Trent University, was involved in a high-profile trial stemming from her time at York, in which the conviction of the man she alleged raped her was overturned on appeal.

A.B. is not testifying in the trial of Galloway’s defamation lawsuit, citing mental health struggles.

Gray outlined some of those struggles in her testimony earlier Monday.

She told the court she was concerned the woman might harm herself shortly before the claims against Galloway came to light in November 2015.

Gray said she had become a “safe person” for A.B., who had talked of a “suicide plan” and expressed “suicidal ideation” during a phone call, though Gray acknowledged hers was not a clinical assessment.

Gray said A.B. indicated she was upset because Galloway had called her multiple times in a short period.

She recalled telling 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 also said A.B. told her she had initially tried to report the claims against Galloway to a University of B.C. official in 2013, but it was, “to put it mildly, an unpleasant experience.”

She said A.B. did not want to go further “at that time, due to the lack of institutional infrastructure that they could communicate what the next steps would be.”

Gray cried as she testified Monday, saying it had been “so hard to watch” A.B.’s mental health deteriorate in the lead-up to the trial underway in Vancouver.

A.B. had attempted suicide in February and she was hospitalized after another attempt in June, Gray told the court.

“Every day this year, pretty much, I’ve woken wondering … when it’s going to happen. Not if, but when,” Gray said.

Gray testified last week that she regretted some of her online posts about Galloway.

Her lawyer, Vanshika Dhawan, told the court last Thursday her client was no longer defending some of her online statements as responsible communications or arguing they were made honestly under “qualified privilege.”

But she said Gray was still defending certain statements as fair comment.

Gray concluded her testimony on Monday, and the trial will continue Tuesday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2026.

Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press