The wife of former University of British Columbia professor Steven Galloway was the first witness to testify on day one of the defamation trial against four defendants he says falsely accused him of sexual assault.

Katie Wager told the court that Galloway was at a speaking engagement in Ohio in late 2015 when he first became aware of the accusation. Wagner when she arrived in Ohio to support him he was in a hospital on 72-hour suicide watch.

“He was in a hospital gown, he was upset, crying, shaking. He knew there was an accusation of sexual assault but of course he hadn’t sexually assaulted anyone so there was a lot of us trying to figure out what was going on.”

Galloway’s accuser is a former student, “AB", who is the main defendant in the lawsuit. Others named as defendants are alleged to have spread the sexual assault claim, including on social media.

Galloway, a best selling Canadian author, was never charged, though he was fired from his job as a tenured professor and chair of the UBC creative writing department.

A report by retired B.C. Supreme Court judge Mary Ellen Boyd commissioned by UBC concluded the claims against Galloway were unsubstantiated. After arbitration, he was awarded over $240,000 in damages from the university.

Wagner said Boyd’s report only served to spark a ”mob of people online” to repeat the accusations.

'Never going to be an end'

“There would be a flurry on Twitter — which was such a big thing,” said Wagner. “I think there was a sense at that...

Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiugFBVV95cUxQMktpaFVwZjZXMGl2eWhydjJx...