Ex-UBC prof cross-examined in defamation trial about repeated phone calls to accuser A.B.

The former head of the University of B.C.’s creative writing department, who is suing a former student for defamation, testified that he was worried about the news of the affair coming out.

Steven Galloway was under cross-examination Friday by the lawyer for A.B., a former graduate student in his department with whom he had a relationship for two years, during the trial in B.C. Supreme Court.

In late 2015, two years after the affair had ended, A.B. sent an email to another UBC faculty member, Keith Maillard, to discuss a sexual assault allegation in a separate UBC faculty, A.B.’s lawyer, Arden Beddoes, told Justice Neena Sharma. In it, she asked Maillard not to forward the email to others because she felt “very unsafe for reasons of my own,” court heard.

A.B. had copied Galloway on the email and he said he called A.B. to ask her about it. He said she was short with him before ending the call.

Galloway had testified earlier that A.B. had been posting on social media about “power dynamics” and imbalances in relationships, and he worried that she was characterizing their consensual relationship to Maillard as one in which he had taken advantage of her.

Galloway then called both A.B. and Maillard a number of times — Beddoes said Maillard had 34 calls that day from an unknown number and A.B. during the same time had repeated calls from an unknown number.

After being unable to reach A.B. by phone that day, Nov. 11, 2015, Galloway left a voicemail for her, a transcript of which was read in court.

Galloway told her on the message that he wanted to apologize to her and “to take responsibility for our relationship” and to “turn myself in.” He told her he was “pretty ashamed of the way I acted,” that he had “turned over a new leaf” and was “trying to be a good person.”

“It does seem you’re in distress?” Beddoes asked him. “Your concern is she was talking about a consensual affair?” he asked.

He agreed and said he was worried that she felt there was a power imbalance in the relationship and was fearful how news of their consensual affair would affect Maillard, a good friend, and he wanted the chance to speak with him first.

“And that’s because you were panicking?” because of fear of losing his job, asked Beddoes.

But Galloway said a sexual relationship with a student wasn’t a firing offence and he was instead worried instead about how that news was going to be upsetting to Maillard, who was like a father figure to him.

In reference in his voice message to being ashamed about the affair, Beddoes asked: “That was the only thing you were ashamed of?”

“I should not have been cheating on my wife and I should not have been doing it with a student,” he said.