(file photo)
The United Kingdom man who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the 2023 death of Owen Sound restaurant owner Sharif Rahman has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison.
Justice Christopher Chorney accepted the joint submission from the Crown and defence counsel in an Owen Sound courtroom Friday morning, sentencing 25-year-old Robert Evans Jr. to 42 months’ imprisonment.
Evans Jr. has 212 days — or about seven months — left to serve in prison, after credit for his pre-trial time spent in custody. Chorney says he understands after Evans Jr. concludes his time in prison, he will then continue to be detained pending deportation from Canada.
“This was truly a one-punch case of manslaughter,” Chorney says. “And what is crucial to understanding the seriousness or gravity of the offence in this case, is that while Mr. Evans ought to have known he might cause some bodily harm, he certainly did not intend to cause the death of Mr. Rahman. Nor did he mean to cause bodily harm to him that he knew was likely to cause his death.”
“It is in this context that one must evaluate the gravity of the offence,” Chorney continues. “None of this makes the death of Mr. Rahman any less tragic.”
Rahman left behind a wife and a young daughter when he died on August 24, 2023, from injuries he suffered a week prior outside his restaurant, The Curry House, in downtown Owen Sound, where he was punched in the face by Evans Jr. in a dispute arising from an unpaid bill.
The sentencing decision handed down Friday morning was the final one in the Rahman case. Last month, the father and uncle of Evans Jr. — Robert Busby Evans and Barry Evans — pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact and were given 21-month sentences, which amounted to time served for the period they had already spent in custody. They accepted responsibility for helping Evans Jr. escape from the area, and then from Canada after the incident.
Evans Jr., Busby Evans, and Barry Evans were extradited to Canada last year to face charges related to Rahman’s death, after being arrested in the United Kingdom in 2024.