Galloway defamation trial hears of 'inflated and outrageous' email rhetoric

VANCOUVER — A former creative writing student told a B.C. Supreme Court defamation trial that she was “shocked” and “horrified” at language used in a mass email by a fellow student who was investigating misconduct allegations against author and former UBC professor Steven Galloway. Cara Woodruff, a UBC creative writing graduate, told the civil trial where Galloway alleges defamation that she received an email in November 2015 from Chelsea Rooney, who was collecting complaints against Galloway.

Woodruff said the email from Rooney contained “inflated and outrageous” rhetoric and urged recipients to anonymously contact a reporter from The Canadian Press about allegations against Galloway. She told the court that Rooney had been speaking on behalf of a woman identified only as A.B. because she was vulnerable and in need of support, but A.B.

“had mentioned before that she didn’t like Chelsea. She didn’t trust her, so I didn’t understand why Chelsea was coming in like a detective.” Woodruff said she didn’t believe that Galloway sexually assaulted A.B. and she kept asking the woman to go to the police to have it investigated “properly.” Rooney issued a public apology to Galloway this month, just days before the trial began.

Her statement said she understood her conduct toward him was “serious and harmful,” and that she deeply regretted “contributing to the harm Mr. Galloway has suffered.” Woodruff told the court on Tuesday that she felt “blindsided” when she learned of the allegations because she had been friends with A.B., and it “was very unclear” to Woodruff if there was a criminal investigation. “But it was a very complex situation.

It just didn’t make sense to me.” A.B. is not testifying in the trial, and the court has heard she is not asserting in her defence that the allegations she made against Galloway are true. Galloway, the author of novels including “The Cellist of Sarajevo” and “The Confabulist” was a tenured professor and the chair of the creative writing program at the University of B.C.

He was never charged over the allegations by A.B., whose name is under a publication ban, though he was fired from his job. Rooney said in her apology that she had been asked by the university, A.B. and faculty members to gather complaints against Galloway, but she had “no information” that the “very serious and unproven allegations” aga…