Burlington assault upsets community

There has been an alarming assault case in Burlington — involving a door-to-door salesman — and an eleven year old girl. It started with a knock at the door. Many of us simply trust that the stranger on the other side of the door can be trusted not to do you or your family any harm. But in this case police say it appears the salesman was interested in more than selling a water heater.

This all started on Saturday afternoon around 12:30. A door-to-door salesman was going though this Burlington neighbourhood — the Pinedale Avenue and Riverside Drive area. He knocked on a door where a woman answered and they had some discussion about changing over their water heater. That offer was declined by the woman and the salesman left.

A few minutes later, the mother left the house with one of her two children. A few minutes later, the salesman went back to the house and again knocked at the door. An 11-year old girl was inside and as she came to answer the door, it started to open. She was smart enough to run upstairs and grab a telephone.

As she came back down she was confronted by the salesman who asked her age, name and whether her parents were home and, at one point, grabbed the young girl. She managed to get away and go to a neighbours house for safety. Shortly thereafter, police arrested a man in the area.

The man worked for a company called National Home Services. One of their spokespersons sent us an email concerning the incident which said: “As with every independent contractor who markets our products, Mr. Wight did pass a police background check as part of our recruitment and consumer protection measures. Mr. Wight is no longer marketing on behalf of NHS, or any other Just Energy company. We have been in contact with Halton police and remain fully cooperative in their efforts to facilitate their investigation.”

The Halton police confirm this and part of the cooperation involves reviewing the process for background checks and hiring and trying to improve those background checks. The also spoke about being careful when people come to the door. We found one person in this area who was disturbed by this incident.

Megan Richards-Vieira is an area resident. “Definitely I’ll have to question whether or not I’m going to open the door again — and especially having a conversation with him about not opening the front door if there’s people there. We’ve just been so relaxed in this neighbourhood.”

Halton police arrested 19-year old Daniel Wight of Birchmount Road in Toronto. He’s been charged with break and enter, commit assault, forcible confinement and uttering threats. He has been remanded in custody while awaiting a bail hearing Tuesday morning in Halton.