Police arrive at home of Peterborough medical officer of health Dr. Thomas Piggott Wednesday night

Peterborough police attended the home of Peterborough medical officer of health Dr. Thomas Piggott on Wednesday night (January 19).

Witnesses tell kawarthaNOW several police vehicles arrived at Dr. Piggott’s East City home around 7 p.m. on Wednesday, leaving and then subsequently returning at 10 p.m.

On Thursday morning, Peterborough Public Health issued an advisory that Thursday’s regularly scheduled COVID-19 media briefing would be postponed “due to events that happened at the personal residence of Dr. Piggott last night and his need to be with his family.”

On Saturday afternoon (January 15), a small group of anti-vaxxers showed up to protest at Dr. Piggott’s home carrying signs. They dispersed after police arrived. The protest came a day after Dr. Piggott posted on Twitter to criticize anti-vax protestors outside the offices of Peterborough Public Health.

Police have not released details of the Wednesday night incident. However, a video posted on YouTube shows a woman arriving at Dr. Piggott’s home, carrying a plastic food dish, and knocking on his door. When Dr. Piggott answers the door, the woman welcomes him to the neighbourhood and he introduces himself. Dr. Piggott then asks the name of the “gentleman” standing behind the woman.

When Dr. Piggott apparently becomes aware the man is recording the encounter on video, he quickly shuts the door while the woman pulls out a piece of paper out of the plastic food dish and shouts “You’re being served, you’ve been served!”. She then places the piece of paper in his mailbox.

(Editor’s note: the video has since been removed from YouTube for violating its guidelines; however, we have embedded another version of the same video.)

VIDEO: Protestors arrive at Dr. Piggott’s home

The description below the original YouTube video read, “Thomas Piggott, Peterborough Ontario Medical Officer of Health, served Notice: Trespass, Liability and Cease and Desist. Peterborough Public Health uses private security to block the public from accessing publicly funded resources and hides in a private building. We are therefore left with no alternative but to serve them at their residences. Piggott called police after slamming his door. He made FALSE accusations of an “attempted assault” to police. If he’d lie to police about this, what else is he lying about?”

Peterborough resident Tyler Berry, who has been vocal against COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates, posted a public Facebook video of police arriving at Dr. Piggott’s home.

On Thursday, Tyler Berry posted another public Facebook video of police arresting and subsequently releasing him. In that video, a police officer can be heard reading charges of criminal harrassment, intimidation, and mischief. It is unclear whether the charges are related to the incident at Dr. Piggott’s home.

On Thursday afternoon, Peterborough police issued a media release stating that a 30-year-old Peterborough man — presumably Berry, although the Peterborough Police Service no longer provides the names of accused people in its media releases — was arrested and charged with criminal harassment and intimidation of a health official.

“The accused was also served with a court summons on two charges of mischief in connection with an unsanctioned parade on December 11, 2021,” the media release reads. “The accused was released on an undertaking with conditions and is scheduled to appear in court on February 17, 2022.”

“Peterborough Police takes these incidents seriously and, in this case, has laid a charge under the new Bill C-3 provisions of the Criminal Code.”

Bill C-3, which received royal assent on December 17 and came into force on January 16, amends the criminal code to make it an offence to “provoke a state of fear” in a health professional or a person who assists a health professional in the performance of their duties.

Later on Thursday afternoon, Peterborough police also charged a 54-year-old Peterborough woman in connection with the incident at Dr. Piggott’s home. As a result of an investigation, a warrant for a person involved was requested by the police and granted. The accused woman was arrested on the warrant and charged with criminal harassment and intimidation of a health official. She was released on an undertaking with conditions and is scheduled to appear in court on February 16, 2022.

Although police do not name the accused woman, Christine Massey is identified in a video as the person who knocked on Dr. Piggott’s front door. Massey publicly posted on her Facebook page about the arrest, where she also writes about her involvement in the incident at Dr. Piggott’s home.

This story has been revised to accurately describe the sequence of events in the video of the incident at Dr. Piggott’s home.