A 50-year-old local man has been found guilty in an August 2023 machete attack in downtown Barrie.
Ontario Court Madam Justice Nancy Dawson found Anil Ramdas guilty on four charges, including two counts of assault with a weapon, assault causing bodily harm and possession of a dangerous weapon.
In the wee hours of Aug. 13, 2023, court heard Ramdas struck two men with a machete, who he said were attacking his teenage son.
Ramdas, who operates a restaurant nearby, fetched a weapon from his van – the machete – and struck both victims once each, causing at least one of the men to seek hospital treatment to close the wound.
Ramdas then fled the scene.
The attack was caught on numerous video cameras, both security and phone camera footage. Barrie police issued a release the next day looking for two suspects.
In addition to his restaurant, Ramdas, with his family, operates Break n Rage in south Barrie. The establishment’s “rage rooms” sees people pay to take out their frustrations – in a productive way – by smashing objects such as dishes, old computer monitors and other assorted, breakable household items.
It was a revelation that could be called ironic, especially since Ramdas’s release conditions allowed him to continue to work at the business.
Ramdas had pleaded not guilty and mounted a defence that was based on the principal of a father protecting his son, who had become entangled in a dispute with the two men. He said he then got the machete from his vehicle, where he had been carrying it for protection.
Ramdas said he only used the machete when he discovered that his son was vastly over-matched physically and fighting over an object that was alternatively identified in court as a pole or a crowbar.
Dawson rejected Ramdas’s defence in rendering her judgment Wednesday at the Barrie courthouse.
“He should not have had that weapon in his van,” said Dawson. “There was no specific reason (to need it).”
At the time, Barrie police said they were looking for two men who fled toward Meridan Place. Court heard Ramdas’s admission that he failed to stick around the scene to call police and that he discarded the machete into Lake Simcoe.
Ramdas attended Wednesday’s proceeding by video and was not available for immediate comment.
But contacted later by phone at Break n Rage, he said his reason for fleeing the scene was simple.
“There was a lot of people around. I didn’t know what they were going to do,” he said. “I was scared. I just wanted to get my young son home safe.”
In rendering her two-hour decision that was sandwiched around the morning break, Dawson said Ramdas’s actions were not that of someone protecting their child, nor was it proportional and reasonable, as required to be able to successfully claim such a defence.
“(His actions) were dangerous to the public peace,” said Dawson.
After the judgment and the recording of the guilty verdict, the case was put over to April, by which time Dawson will have been issued a pre-sentence report requested by the defence.
The Crown is expected to be seeking a term of incarceration.
“I’m going to jail for protecting my son,” said Ramdas.
