Killer driver in Sydney hotel quarantine after release from Victorian prison
A convicted criminal jailed for the fatal car ramming of his girlfriend is in Sydney hotel quarantine after his release from a Victorian prison.
A convicted violent offender who was jailed for the fatal car ramming of carnival performer Alicia Little is in Sydney hotel quarantine after his release from a Victorian prison.
Charles McKenzie Ross Evans, 46, who walked early on Tuesday from a jail in rural Ararat, Victoria, has flown to Sydney where he will spend the mandatory COVID-19 isolation for 14 days in a hotel with other interstate fly-ins.
Two families are in fear because of his early release, just 32 months after he was jailed after Alicia’s death.
Although prison and parole authorities have not told the families exactly where Evans will be isolating, it is believed he is staying at a top Sydney hotel.
Alicia’s mother Lee and the former wife of Evans, Kim Bermingham, fear he will not be closely monitored when he is freed from quarantine because of COVID-19 restrictions on parole supervision.
Evans will be going to live with his son outside the central western NSW town of Forbes, where his mother also lives.
Now under supervision by NSW correctional authorities, Evans is forbidden from drinking alcohol or driving a car until his parole expires in December 2024.
Friends have already indicated they will be holding a party next month to celebrate his 47th birthday and his freedom from incarceration.
Lee Little told news.com.au she and her family’s levels of anxiety were “through the roof” after Evans’ release because he would be living “only five hours away” from where they lived.
She said Alicia’s father, Brian, who lives with a brain injury sustained in an accident, was “hypervigilant” and “getting up that many times a night” to check the doors are locked.
“I bet you (Evans) sleeps at night. We don’t,” she said.
“He used to tell Alicia ‘nobody loves you and nobody will believe you’.”
After a violent and controlling relationship with Evans, Alicia Maree Little was poised to leave him for good with her bags packed at a rural Victorian property on December 28, 2017.
That afternoon the 41-year-old had already dialled triple-0 to report her fear of her “drunk and abusive” partner.
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Police made their way out to the isolated farm outside the Victorian village of Kyneton in the Macedon Ranges, 100km northwest of Melbourne.
But before they arrived, Evans ran his Toyota HiLux into Alicia, crushing her body between his car and a concrete water tank.
When officers reached the scene they found Alicia foaming at the mouth before she died where she lay.
She had suffered massive blunt force trauma, a lacerated liver and huge haemorrhaging into her abdomen.
Police would later charge Evans, who had fled the scene, with murder.
But the charge was dropped by prosecutors in a deal that saw Evans agree to plead guilty to downgraded charges of dangerous driving causing death and fail to render assistance.
Lee Little had received a text from her daughter alerting her there would be “drama” then saw on TV news that a woman’s body has been found at Kyneton and “just knew it was my Alicia”.
Sentenced to a minimum two-and-half years in prison with time served, Evans qualified for parole and applied to be transferred from Victorian to NSW supervision.
His former wife and mother of his three children, Ms Bermingham has told news.com.au about his treatment of her during their marriage.
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“I don’t know how many times he threatened to kill me, “ said Ms Bermingham, who was attacked while pregnant and breastfeeding her three children, kicked, headbutted and scalded.
The last time he choked her, he had come home from the pub in a rage and strangled her until she blacked out.
She woke up on the ground with her kids screaming, “You’ve killed Mum” and Evans yelling, “I haven’t killed the c**t yet”, Ms Bermingham told news.com.au.
“Then he picked me up by the hair and forced my head up to the coat rack and tried to drive one of the hooks through the back of my head.”
Ms Bermingham said she would be dead but for her children trying to drag Evans from her, her younger daughter dialling triple-0 after the initial choking and police arriving when she was up against the coat rack.
Evans has previously worked in the carnival entertainment industry and has relatives who may be able to offer him work in that field.
“He’ll be that cocky when he gets out,” Ms Bermingham said.
“He would think to this day he’s done nothing wrong and that Alicia was in the wrong.”
Lee Little said her daughter Alicia had been a “soft touch” for those in need, and initially had perhaps seen Evans as someone who needed help.
If Evans reoffends or breaches his parole conditions before December 2024, he risks being returned to custody in NSW.
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