'You don't expect that to come out here': Residents concerned over reported sexual assaults in Brighton neighbourhood

On Wednesday, November 16, Carly Tonkin says she was walking home with her dog through a park in the Brighton neighbourhood when she was approached.

“He asked me if I needed to have service and I thought, because he was a young kid, I thought he was going to need some money for shovelling a driveway or to buy a coat because he was only wearing a sweater, running shoes and sweatpants,” she said.

Instead, Tonkin says he asked her sexually explicit questions until she walked the opposite way.

“I didn't think much of it at the time until my friend told me that evening that she was actually assaulted and touched,” she said.

Saskatoon Police say it’s investigating following separate reports of women being sexually assaulted by a stranger in the area of Dagnone Crescent in recent days.

“The encounters were brief and, fortunately, the victims were able to escape the assault by their own actions,” police said in a statement to CTV News.

“In the interest of public safety but with respect to the victims' privacy, we can offer that the sexual assaults involved a combination of physical, verbal, and exposure-related advancements towards the victim.”

Tonkin says she and her family moved to Brighton from Toronto in July because it looked like a good neighbourhood to raise a family.

“It's a quiet, family-friendly neighbourhood. You don't expect that to come out here,” she said.

Executive director of the Saskatoon Sexual Assault and Information Centre Reagan Conway says it’s a reminder that sexual violence can happen anywhere at any time.

“I think for most people there is a belief that you're safe in your own home, you're safe in your own community, but we know that assaults can happen anywhere,” she said.

Conway says sexual assault is an all-encompassing term, including sexual abuse and sexual harassment. She says it doesn’t have to involve sexual violence and can include emotional and psychological harm.

“As a society, we have to do a little bit better so that we're not telling victims or survivors that they have to protect themselves, but that we need to figure out why these violent crimes are happening in the first place and stop them beforehand,” she said.

“[So] Stopping it before it occurs, offering education. Having a good understanding about what sexualized violence is, supporting it when it happens, and support of survivors of sexualized violence that then might perpetuate themselves.”

Saskatoon Police say the suspect is described as being between 15 and 25 years old, 5’9” to 6’0” in height and approximately 180 pounds with a slim build.

In two separate instances, he was seen wearing a neon purple shirt and neon yellow jacket, before later being seen by the same victim wearing all black with a hood pulled tightly around his face.

SPS says members of the public are asked to remain watchful of people around them, to look out for one another, and contact them or Crime Stoppers with relevant information.