UBC accuser apologizes ahead of Steven Galloway defamation trial

Chelsea Rooney, one of several accusers of UBC author Steven Galloway, apologized Saturday ahead of a defamation trial set to begin Monday in B.C. Supreme Court. Rooney said she communicated "serious and unproven allegations" against Galloway and was involved in collecting complaints to build a case against him.

"I recognize that statements and communications about allegations of this nature can cause profound harm to a person's reputation, work, personal life, and family, and did in fact do so to Mr. Galloway. I deeply regret my role in contributing to the harm Mr. Galloway has suffered in this regard," Rooney said in a statement published Saturday in the National Post and posted in full on gallowayapologies.com.

Eight other apologies from people saying they regret communications or actions that accused Galloway of sexual assault also appear on the website. Rooney acknowledged that communications she circulated caused others to believe the allegations were true, though she had no basis for knowing whether they were.

Galloway, author of novels including "The Cellist of Sarajevo" and "The Confabulist", was a tenured professor and chair of the creative writing program at UBC. He was never charged, but was fired from his job. An independent report commissioned by UBC and conducted by retired B.C. Supreme Court judge Mary Ellen Boyd concluded the claims against him were unsubstantiated.

Galloway sued numerous people in 2018, alleging defamation through false sexual assault accusations spread by fellow professors, a former student, and others on social media and elsewhere. The original accusation came in November 2015. The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed his accusers' appeal in 2024. Rooney fought the case to the nation's highest court, arguing that accusations of sexual assault must be protected speech regardless of truth or circumstances.

Galloway's lawyer Dan Burnett said his client's "reputation and life were devastated by the criminal allegations." B.C. Supreme Court Justice Elaine Adair ruled in 2021 that if the defendants' arguments were accepted, "there would be no legal consequences of any kind" to publicly calling someone a rapist, noting it would be "difficult to see how something so extreme and potentially reckless would be in the public interest."