Woman’s defamation defence no longer says author Galloway sexually assaulted her

VANCOUVER – The lawyer for a woman at the heart of a defamation case brought by author and former University of B.C. professor Steven Galloway says her defence no longer includes an assertion that he sexually assaulted her.

Arden Beddoes instead says the former creative writing student referred to as A.B. has amended her defence to say she “reported sexual assaults,” and not that she was sexually assaulted.

But Beddoes says A.B. is not making an admission that the claims were false.

The exchange between Beddoes and the judge in B.C. Supreme Court on the trial’s third day came as the lawyer unsuccessfully tried to prevent Galloway from testifying about the alleged incidents that he denies occurred.

Beddoes objected, saying Galloway’s testimony about a sexual assault that A.B. previously claimed happened on the author’s boat in 2011, was irrelevant to the alleged defamatory statements, a notion questioned by Justice Neena Sharma.

Galloway told the court such an assault “never happened,” and A.B.’s “entire story is fictional.” 

The author’s lawyer Daniel Burnett said his testimony was relevant to potential damages in the case, due to what he called the “outrageous fabrication” of the sexual assault claim.

Galloway is the award-winning author of “The Cellist of Sarajevo,” whose career was ended by the claims of sexual assault and his subsequent suspension at the university. 

He is suing A.B. and other defendants.

Sharma had asked Beddoes to clarify the defence offered by A.B. who cannot be named under a publication ban.

“Does she still include an assertion of being sexually assaulted by Steven Galloway in her statement of defence?,” Sharma asked.

“No,” Beddoes said.

Sharma said A.B. had asked the court “for the extraordinary remedy of a sealing order and a publication ban on her name indefinitely on the basis that her mental health is in tatters because of what he did.” 

Beddoes said his client’s mental health was at issue due to “engagement” with the legal proceedings, and just one basis for seeking the publication ban. 

The judge went back and forth with Beddoes about the distinction between a court finding the sexual assault allegation to be false, versus making a “presumption of falsity.”

Sharma 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.” 

Beddoes said his client had withdrawn the defence that the alleged defamatory statements were true and therefore justified, but she has not admitted they were false.

The judge said withdrawing the defence of justification without admitting the statements were false “doesn’t make falsity irrelevant.” 

Galloway testified earlier on Wednesday that he was “floored” by the contents of emails disclosed in his defamation lawsuit over the unproven sexual assault allegations. 

He said he was shocked to learn that an email to the president of UBC from the defendant A.B. — alleging Galloway sexually assaulted her — had been copied to a journalist from the CBC’s Fifth Estate.

Galloway said correspondence between A.B. and others in the university’s creative writing department had been disclosed in an earlier arbitration, and later in relation to the lawsuit he originally filed in 2018. 

He said he was “horrified” at emails depicting him as a violent sexual predator, and he never understood why the university publicly announced his suspension in 2015 over what it called “serious allegations.”

Galloway said the public announcement wasn’t standard practice, calling it “verdict first, trial second,” but it made sense in the context of emails from A.B. in which he says she had been “threatening them with a big public thing, at a time when they were extremely concerned with their image.” 

Multiple defendants originally named in the lawsuit have settled with Galloway and published apologies to him over the allegations that he denies but which were spread widely on social media. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 7, 2026