Driver to serve 17 months for role in 2013 Kent Park killing
Judge says death was ‘the culmination of puerile, petulant and misplaced bravado’
A man who was behind the wheel of a sport utility vehicle when one of his passengers shot and killed a man following a dispute over a woman was sentenced to an eightyear prison term Friday.
With time served factored in, Shorn Carr, 36, of Montreal, is left with a term of little more than 17 months for his role in the death of Fehmi Sen.
The 28-year-old man was gunned down near Kent Park in N.D.G. on May 30, 2013.
While delivering his sentence, Superior Court Justice Guy Cournoyer attempted to address the frustrations expressed by Sen’s family during sentencing arguments at the end of March.
Their frustration stems from the fact that three other men were initially charged with firstdegree murder, but Carr is the only person who’s been convicted of a homicide. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter last year.
Rakesh Jankie and Marlon Henry, both 28, were tried before a jury this year on first-degree murder charges but were acquitted.
Kshawn Rocque, 26, pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to murder and was sentenced to the equivalent of 42 months.
A person familiar with the trial told the Montreal Gazette some eyewitnesses called to testify for the prosecution did not tell the jury what they told police after the shooting.
“(Sen’s) senseless death was the culmination of puerile, petulant and misplaced bravado. Those involved displayed a distorted sense of honour that has left a mother, a family and numerous friends grieving,” Cournoyer said while delivering his decision.
“Despite the wall of silence surrounding the commission of this insensate homicide, the Court should do its best to tailor a sentence, both individualized and proportionate, to fit the circumstances of the offence and the moral blameworthiness of Mr. Carr.”
The Crown’s theory is Sen was shot by accident after Jankie and Henry previously argued with a friend of Sen’s over a woman. Sen was standing near the intended target, Volkan Demirel, when the shot was fired from a Lincoln Navigator.
Cournoyer noted that two witnesses, including Demirel, told police the shot was fired from the rear passenger side of the vehicle. According to a statement of facts filed in Carr’s case, Henry was in the rear passenger seat when the shot was fired.
“Suffice it to say that in this case, the prosecution and the police have had a limited success in piercing the wall of silence surrounding the shooting of Mr. Sen,” Cournoyer said. “This unfortunate situation handicaps the capacity of the Court to weigh and determine the most appropriate sentence.”
Cournoyer found himself in an unusual position as the sentencing judge. He was presiding judge in the trial of Jankie and Henry, and heard much more evidence in that capacity. However, in the Carr case, he was limited to basing his decision on the summary of facts.
“Mr. Carr’s guilty plea acknowledges that he aided and abetted in the commission of the murder of Mr. Sen, because a reasonable person, in all the circumstances, would have appreciated that bodily harm was the foreseeable consequence of the dangerous act which was being undertaken by those present in the vehicle on May 30,” the judge said.
“The precise knowledge of Mr. Carr of the dangerous act contemplated by the others in the vehicle is unknown.”
“For sentencing purposes, his guilty plea to manslaughter cannot be equated with a knowledge that the use of a gun was intended in order to kill Mr. Sen or that he willingly aided someone to kill Mr. Sen with the intention to do so.
“In the absence of much needed information about Mr. Carr and the fact that his guilty plea is the only mitigating factor, the appropriate sentence is eight years from which time served in preventive custody must be deducted.”