Professor changed policies after Galloway accuser's incomplete thesis accepted

Author and former University of British Columbia professor Steven Galloway is seen through a window as he leaves B.C. Supreme Court during a lunch break at his defamation lawsuit, in Vancouver, on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

A University of B.C. creative writing professor says she personally wrote policies about masters thesis completions after she regretfully signed off on the incomplete thesis for the student who accused author Steven Galloway of sexual assault.

Annabel Lyon concluded her testimony Wednesday in the defamation trial where Galloway filed a lawsuit alleging the former student and others defamed him with the unproven allegations, claims which he denies.

Lyon says professor Keith Maillard was the woman’s thesis supervisor and Lyon was a “second reader” tasked with signing off on graduate student’s completed thesis, and the woman, identified only as A.B. due to a publication ban, submitted a 144-page portion of a novel in July 2015.

Lyon told the court that she was uncomfortable signing off, but deferred to her more senior colleague, Maillard, and agreed to accept the unfinished work for the woman to graduate, and later wrote policies so that nobody would be put in that position again.

She says she never actually read the woman’s unfinished thesis, but offered to read it when it was complete, an offer that still stands though she regrets signing off on it “to this day.”

Both Lyon and Maillard were named as defendants in Galloway’s lawsuit, originally filed in 2018, but are no longer parties to the legal action, where Galloway is seeking damages alleging his career was destroyed by the sexual assault allegations, which were found unsubstantiated by a retired judge hired by UBC to investigate.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2026.

The Canadian Press