The 23-year-old man arrested in connection with a violent sexual assault in Saanich in March worked at a Victoria daycare centre.
Jesse Doig, an employee at the Cridge Centre for the Family on Hillside Avenue, is charged with sexual assault with a weapon, breaking and entering and forcible confinement.
Shelley Morris, CEO of the Cridge Centre, said she was alerted Tuesday that police were about to arrest one of the centre’s daycare workers.
Doig has worked in the Cridge’s child-care centre for just under three years, Morris said, teaching in the nature preschool in the mornings and running activities for the after-school program.
Morris said staff is struggling to “reconcile the person that you know in the work environment with these charges.”
“When I had to sit down with my staff and share with them what was going on, they were shattered and distraught,” Morris said. “In his work with the Cridge, he was a fine employee. And well-liked by his colleagues, so that makes it that much more difficult to process.”
The Cridge sent a letter to parents Thursday notifying them of the charges and providing resources on how to talk to their children.
“We wanted to be quick and transparent, provide them with resources and provide them age-appropriate information for children,” Morris said.
Morris asked Saanich police if she should be concerned about any risk to children at the daycare centre. She said officers were clear that the charges relate to an act of violence involving an adult.
Saanich police spokeswoman Sgt. Julie Fast said they “have no evidence to suggest that any of the children were at risk” while Doig worked at the daycare centre.
All daycare staff undergo rigorous vulnerable-sector checks that include a detailed criminal background screening, Morris said. Doig did not have a criminal record when he was hired.
“There were no flags, there were no indications in his work with children in any of his engagements with us that there was anything that we would be concerned about,” she said.
On March 17 about 2 a.m., a man with a knife broke into a townhouse complex on Wolf Street, within walking distance of the University of Victoria, and assaulted a woman.
The victim, a 22-year-old woman, lives in the Lower Mainland and had been staying with friends who are students at UVic. Police said she did not know her attacker.
“This was a very traumatic crime that significantly impacted the 22-year-old female victim,” Fast said.
Police said at the time that the suspect might have had prior knowledge that the unit he broke into was insecure.
Doig appeared before a justice of the peace Wednesday via telebail.
He was remanded into custody until his next court appearance on Monday.
