Pickering couple targeted with homophobic slur telling them to leave

A same-sex couple in Pickering is expressing shock and anger after they returned home with their daughter to find a homophobic threat scrawled on their garage door.

Brett Alford and his husband Paul Alford-Jones returned to their rural home off Highway 7 last night to discover the message, which used a gay slur to suggest that the couple is not welcome in the area and should move within 30 days.

The message was spray-painted in bright orange and read “We don’t like F*****. Time to move. 30 days.”

“At first I thought it was a joke. I did – I thought it was a joke,” Alford said. “Then when I started to read further and saw the time to move and time to leave, the 30 days, it sunk in that there was something seriously wrong here.”

When the weight of the message sunk in, Alford went from light-hearted to emotional to angry.

“It’s really funny how it kind of hits you,” he said. “You think you’re going to be tough to something like this but then it’s a threat to you and you realize. Then I was mad and now I’m more mad than anything that this would happen.”

The couple also experienced another emotion – fear, for the safety of their young daughter.

“The primary job of a parent is to protect their child. I’m fearful for her safety –100 per cent. That’s without question,” Alford-Jones said.

He also said he’s angry that someone would try and tell them that they have to leave a place that has been Alford’s family home for four decades.

“The thing that gets me is the ‘time to move,’ Alford-Jones said. “This has been Brett’s family home for 40 years. We’ve only lived here for a year, but it’s been his family home for 40 years. He grew up here.”

The couple recently moved to the home to help Alford’s father take care of the property, which they say is fairly secluded.

“That’s the thing about it – it’s completely isolated, completely quiet out here,” Alford said. “We’ve not interacted with anyone because we have to go out of here to interact.”

That leaves the couple confused about who would have gone out of their way to trespass on the property in order to scrawl a hateful message.

Durham police have been called in and they say they are investigating the matter as a possible hate crime.

“We are taking it very seriously,” Duty Insp. Glenn Courneyea told CP24. “We as a department pride ourselves on inclusivity and diversity within our department and also within our region that we work in.  This is unacceptable and we are investigating it fully.”

Courneyea said police have given the couple some security tips, including the installation of cameras and have listed the home as a priority address in case there are any calls about trespassers.

Friends of the couple drove out to help them scrub the hateful message form the home today.

“We are shocked and horrified about the fact that somebody would do this to anybody and it hurts the most because it's doing it to somebody who's a friend,” family friend Philippa Howell told CTV News Toronto.

The couple also has a message for the perpetrators:

“This is a cowardly way to do something, it's 2017,” Alford said. “This has gotta stop and this is Canada.”