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Guest Character Profiles > Roy Evans Aleks Vass, Peter Byrne

When Steph Hoyland was accused of smothering her terminally ill grandfather, Charlie Cassidy, the presiding judge at her trial was Roy Evans, known for his traditional attitudes and feared by many a defence lawyer. When Steph was found to be guilty by the jury, Evans decided that, because the crime hadn’t been committed with any malice or personal gain, she should receive a suspended jail sentence of three years. A few months later, another Ramsay Street resident was in court, when David Bishop was accused of embezzling $47,000 from the Helen Daniels Trust, a charitable organisation owned by Paul Robinson. However, when David’s lawyer, Toadie Rebecchi, proved that the police had gained a search warrant for 34 Ramsay Street, instead of 24, the evidence was inadmissible and Judge Evans was forced to dismiss the case.

Soon after, Judge Roy Evans presided over the court when Darcy Tyler was tried for a supposed robbery he’d committed whilst he’d been on day release from prison. The robbery had actually been a set-up by Izzy Hoyland. Darcy had learnt that the father of Izzy’s baby was not his uncle, Karl Kennedy, as she’d been claiming, and was blackmailing her. During an altercation, Darcy had fallen down some stairs and spent a year in a coma. Darcy then resumed his blackmailing of Izzy, and also claimed to have no memory of the incidents leading up to him becoming comatose. As part of the blackmail, Izzy gave Darcy a glowing character reference, saying that he’d served his time, and Judge Evans agreed, giving him a one year good behaviour bond. Later in the year, Judge Evans was also responsible for sending the Timmins brothers, Dylan and Stingray to Warrinor prison. Stingray had been kidnapped by Dylan's enemy, Roo Hausman and Dylan had been forced to rob a service station. With no evidence to back up their story, Judge Evans was forced to send Stingray to prison for four years and Dylan, for ten.

Two years later, Judge Evans presided over the case when lawyer Toadfish was charged with wreckless driver, having been found to be over the legal alcohol limit when he crashed a minibus carrying many of his friends and neighbours back from the wedding of his colleague Rosie Cammeniti to Frazer Yeats. Rosie agreed to represent Toadie in court and, having heard how highly regarded the young lawyer was in the community, and following a passionate apology from the man himself, he managed to avoid prison time but lost his driver's licence for six months and was dealt a $1000 fine.

Later that year, Susan Kinski was on trial for falling asleep at the wheel and knocking down Bridget Parker. Judge Evans became annoyed when Toadie, struggling with representing Susan, his surrogate mum, in the difficult case, failed to show up, almost ruining his career in the process. When he did finally arrive, he started suffering panic attacks and asked for an adjournment, a request which was denied and only served to fuel Judge Evans' anger further. As the trial finally got under way, prosecutor Cynthia Peters completed her opening statement, and Judge Evans turned to Toadie, who slowly rose to his feet and prepared to talk. After the first day in court, things took a dramatic twist when Bridget suddenly started remembering the accident and realised that she had fallen into the road. With Susan in hospital having tests for her mysterious illness, Toadie met with Cynthia and suggested that Susan change her plea to 'guilty' and a one year custodial sentence, suspended for three years, could be recommended. They then went to Judge Evans with this, and he agreed, making Susan a free woman.

Trivia Notes
• Judge Evans was played by Aleks Vass in his 2005 appearances, before Peter Byrne took over the role in 2007
• Aleks Vass previously guest-starred in 2004 as Judge Karabatsos and as Neil Walden in 2002
• Peter Byrne previously appeared as David Daly and Greg Little in 2005, and as Jeffrey Kingston in 2006

Biography by Steve