Newton business owner says area where attack took place is ‘sketchy’, ‘depressed’

A 53-year-old mother is fighting for her life in hospital tonight after a vicious attack outside the Newton Recreation Centre Sunday night. Police say her injuries are so severe she is not expected to survive.

“It’s absolutely horrendous,” says Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and to her children and husband, and it is just absolutely horrendous that this could happen.”

A business owner in the Newton area says this part of Surrey used to be nice and family-friendly but things have changed.

Diane MacDermott, who owns a gift shop, says she was very troubled to hear about the attack right in her own backyard.

She says she is considering closing her business after 26 and a half years because the area has changed so much.

“I’m tired of fighting with the drug dealers and the crime and everything else, and it’s just become a bit of a sketchy, scary, depressed area for us,” she says on Unfiltered.

“People are being shuffled out of Whalley and they have to go somewhere,” she says. “And this is an easy area to go to.”

MacDermott says RCMP and Surrey council need to do more to help the residents and business owners in Newton. “I had a fellow verbally attack me and try and break through my door one day in the store and then I had dealings with him years later saying this is his drug turf, threatening me and that’s when I just had it. It’s all of this, it’s a depressed area, there are combat, we’ve been having to fight them, we just don’t have any way to fight them. The bus loop is terrible. I don’t even like to walk past it during the day.”

An attack that is similar in nature to the one on Sunday night happened near the Newton bus loop. Police say on Dec. 16 a woman in her 20s was attacked when she got off the bus. It appears the motive for that attack was also robbery.

MacDermott says all the business owners are very concerned and they loved the area, but especially in the last four years things have become too difficult to deal with.

Watts says they will be talking about what can be done in Newton to help the business owners and residents, but right now the focus should be on finding whoever was responsible for this attack and the one on Dec. 16.

“That’s the number one focus right now,” says Watts on Unfiltered.

There have been 24 murders in Surrey this year, which is a record-high. A task force was launched in November to look into the growing crime rate.

Watts says right now the focus is to gather information from the general public to help solve this recent crime.

Security and patrols in the area have been stepped up to try and catch whoever is responsible for this attack.

IHIT is asking anyone with information or who was in the area of the Newton Arena, Newton bus loop and the Newton Wave pool, between 7:00-11:00 p.m., on Dec. 29 and may have seen any suspicious activities, persons, or vehicle to please call the IHIT Tipline at 1-877-551-4448 by email at ihittipline@rcmp-grc.gc.ca. If you wish to remain anonymous you can call CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or leave a tip on their website at Solvecrime.ca.