CBC Disavows School of Secrets Lies

CBC Sources Confirm Further Fabrications In A.B.’s Sworn Testimony

Dear Readers, I want to thank each and every one of you for your support. This newsletter doesn’t have the reach of a large newspaper but with your help, word spread and the publicly available facts that I cited in my last post made their way to some important readers, including those at the CBC. So the big news that I have to share with you today is that you’ve helped shine a light on the truth and we can place down another piece of the puzzle.

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Following my post this Saturday, sources within the CBC have stated that, contrary to the emails sent by A.B. to Keith Maillard and Annabel Lyon, there were never any CBC “lawyers and investigators” involved, and there was never any offer made to A.B. to have her allegations against Steven Galloway included within the Fifth Estate documentary, School of Secrets. Nor was A.B. offered a “national platform” via the CBC at that time.

This contradicts, in its entirety, A.B.’s “CBC Legal Team” statement which Maillard and Lyon read out to tenured and tenure-track faculty at an off-campus emergency meeting, hosted by three faculty at UBC Creative Writing to decide Galloway’s fate as Chair of their program.

The full text of A.B.’s statement appears in the 1st affidavit of Annabel Lyon sworn on July 18, 2019 and filed with the Court on October 14, 2020. It’s an important read and the full statement is as follows:

I want tenured Creative Writing Department faculty to know that when the 5th Estate got wind of my rape, and I met with them at the CBC, they looked at my evidence and listened to my statement, put it through their lawyers--who are meticulous about potential legal cases leveled against them. The CBC legal team thought my evidence was damning, and they wanted my rape by Steve to be one of the two lead stories in the documentary airing on the 20th. “We want to give you a national platform to tell your story,” they said. I declined to do the interview for two reasons. One of the reasons was that I have a great deal of respect (actually love) for the Creative Writing Department and the very good faculty who taught me there. I couldn't imagine breaking the story nationally, blindsiding the people I care about in the Department, and hurting them in this way.

If the CBC law team thinks my case is strong and true and can easily withstand legal scrutiny, surely this should carry weight with the CRWR department in your decision making going forward. I have been working to protect myself, but also to protect the people I care immensely, mentors and friends like Keith, Annabel, Rhea, Nancy, Peggy, Bryan, Andreas, Maureen ... The problem is this: if this department doesn't understand the severity of rape in our department and how this has destroyed three years of my life, and if this department doesn't take clear and strong action to make sure rape culture is uprooted from the CRWR department then, in the near future I will take that national platform. I won't protect a department who doesn't protect rape victims. I won't protect a department that allows rapists to hold positions of power, who allows serial sexual predators access to other young, vulnerable women.

CBC’s specific disavowal of A.B.’s claims put this statement to faculty in a whole new troubling light. There was no truth to any of her assertions and her threats were presented with the clear intent to counter perceptions that she had “thin evidence.”

We now know that no one at CBC (lawyers nor investigators) vetted her story in any fashion at all, let alone in the meticulous fashion she presented to faculty. This is a window into how and why this story keeps growing. A.B.’s inconsistencies in her allegations are excused and explained away.

In her oral submissions two weeks ago, Ms. Birenbaum explained A.B.’s inconsistent testimony under cross examination as resulting from the trauma Galloway caused by raping her, her inability to access parts of her memory because of that trauma, and her inability to read her own evidence prior to cross examination without risking her life to suicide.

Now CBC’s disavowal of A.B. confirms a simpler explanation: A.B.’s testimony shifts on a whim.

Since first bringing her allegations forward in November 2015, A.B. initially denied any sexual relationship with Galloway at all but when presented with evidence to the contrary, admitted that there had been a relationship but that it was based on a power differential. A.B. changed the year of her allegations from 2012 to 2011. As I reported in Quillette in 2018, A.B. also sent Galloway hundreds of text messages, AFTER the date when she would later claim he raped her, which do not support any reasonable belief in her allegations.

These text messages include asking him if she could use his boat as a safe space (despite her later claim she was assaulted on it) and numerous messages of affection and friendship. In regard to the allegation that Galloway slapped a student, a claim which Madam Justice Mary-Ellen Boyd found to be an immature running-joke between a number of students, A.B. had texted Galloway the following:

And when are you slapping Maximew?! Save it for legion!

Three and a half years later, when A.B. circulated her rape allegations, this “slap” was reframed as an assault. But if it was an assault, as Madam Justice Boyd (Ret.) found that it wasn’t, then it was an assault that was premeditated not only by Galloway but also A.B. who clearly wanted to watch it happen at the legion, where UBC Creative Writing faculty and students often met on Thursdays to drink beer and talk about writing.

So to believe that Steven Galloway viciously slapped a student and raped A.B., requires you to also believe that A.B. was an accomplice in that supposed assault due to Stockholm Syndrome and that the mind control was so intense that on her own volition she randomly reached out to Galloway to use his boat as a safe space, despite having been violently assaulted on it.

A.B. to Steven Galloway on June 5, 2012.

Can I write on your boat for a few hours this afternoon. Around 3:00. It's not safe to be at my house.

A.B. to Galloway on March 6, 2012.

The sun is making me giddy! When do we prep the boat for at sea fun?

To believe A.B.’s allegations you must also believe that she would send these messages to her rapist in 2012 to gain access to the boat she was assaulted on, but in 2020 reviewing her own emails prior to cross examination was to risk death by suicide.

To believe A.B. is now also to believe something we know is not true. No one at the CBC vetted her story. A.B. made those threats on her own and with no basis to back up her claims.

I want to thank the people at the CBC for giving us this window into the case. This clarification shows us how and why this story shoots off in so many directions, with each fact presented comes a new reality that must be accepted in order to uphold the presumption of guilt.

Click here to read the full coverage that triggered CBC’s response.