A measure of justice in senseless 2023 death of Ontario restaurant owner
OTTAWA—If you have a criminal record and are coming to Canada using an alias in your passport to illegally conduct a cash-only driveway paving racket, it’s good to know that you can get a lenient manslaughter sentence if you happen to kill somebody.
In the final act in a three-year tragedy of senseless criminal violence, a 25-year-old man from England pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of Sharif Rahman, a much-respected and admired businessman in Owen Sound, Ont., in 2023.
The plea by Robert Evans Jr. came June 5 in the Ontario Court of Justice in the small city north of Toronto. As part of the plea deal, he is likely to be sentenced on July 10 in keeping with an arrangement between the Crown and his defence to 3.5 years prison time. That’s about half the average sentence for manslaughter in Canada.f
And, subtracting the credit being awarded by the court here for time spent in pre-trial custody in Scotland and in Canada, Evans Jr. would serve eight months in jail before presumably being deported.
Evans Jr., who according to media reports from court has a criminal record in the United Kingdom for possession of an imitation firearm and battery, entered this country on June 4, 2023, using a valid U.K. passport with an alias.
His father, Robert Busby Evans, who also was admitted to Canada on a passport using an alias despite having a criminal record, arrived at the same time. And, though lacking work permits, the two spent that summer operating a cash-only business in Ontario called Total Paving, according to Scottish court files seen by a CBC reporter.
According to the CBC, the Scottish court documents identified the Evans family as part of the U.K.’s “traveller” community. Some of these tight-knit clans have come to the attention of authorities for running driveway repair scams in many countries, the CBC noted.
According to what crime reporter Eamon Dillon of Dublin told the CBC, this paving scam features promises of a low, cash-only price that gradually accelerates as a result of purported problems in completing the job. “They're doing this all over continental Europe. They've done it in Australia, they're doing it both in Canada and the U.S.,” Dillon told the CBC. “The FBI describe them as the Irish traveller con fraud group.”
On June 5, a statement of agreed facts read in the Owen Sound court told how Rahman, a 44-year-old originally from Bangladesh who owned the popular Curry House restaurant, was fatally struck down on Aug. 17, 2023.
Evans Jr. and others ran up a $145 bill at the Curry House that night. In the course of an unfolding “dine and dash” incident, Rahman confronted the men outside of his restaurant, according to the statement as reported by the Owen Sound Sun Times.
In the midst of the dispute, Evans Jr. “punched Sharif Rahman in the face, which caused the victim to immediately fall backwards, where he struck the back of his head” on the sidewalk, the statement of fact said. Rahman died a week later in a London, Ont., hospital.
Afterwards, Evans Jr. ran off and was driven away in an SUV by his uncle Barry Evans. Evans Jr. quickly arranged a flight out of Canada with the help of his father. Barry Evans also left quickly.
Justice Christopher Chorney noted on June 5 that fleeing the country so quickly showed how aware the Evanses were of the seriousness of their offence. In 2024, after extensive police work, the trio was arrested in Scotland and extradited to Canada last December.
In court last week, Robert Busby Evans and Barry Evans pleaded guilty to being accessories after the fact to the crime, and Chorney, accepting the recommendation of the Crown and defence, sentenced them to the equivalent of 21 months time served. Allowing for the 1.5 days credit for each day in pre-sentence custody agreed to by the court, the two men will have served their time and are expected to now be taken out of Canada.
In late 2025, Canadian authorities had promised to try to get the Evanses credit for their time in pre-extradition custody in Scotland if convicted here.
Next month, Evans Jr. will be sentenced in Owen Sound. Joint submissions are generally binding, so Chorney is unlikely to stray from the recommended sentence of 3.5 years.
Evans Jr. and the other defendants have gone through the process of expressing regret in court—important in sentencing—and the resolution of the case will spare both the expense of a trial and the possible related trauma for Rahman's wife, Shayela Nasrin, and others.
It will also bring a measure of closure to the case for the Owen Sound community, which has lived with this horrible, soul-destroying event for three years, as Chorney will likely note in his sentencing statement.
But whether people in Owen Sound will believe that justice has been done is another matter.
Les Whittington is a regular columnist for The Hill Times.
The Hill Times