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He discovered that as Cloete was passing in front of Van Meyeren’s house, he had heard the sound of dogs running after him just before he was attacked and thrown to the ground.
“He had done nothing at all to cause or provoke the attack,” the judge said.
“The attack was brutal despite his initial attempts to prevent this and he was bitten very badly, in fact, his left arm was finally amputated at the shoulder in a subsequent surgery.
“[Cloete] He was saved from a worse injury, or perhaps death, by the extremely brave conduct of a passerby, Jacques van Schalkwyk, 44, who, without concern for his own safety, fought Cloete’s dogs and then kept them away from him, ultimately he was also attacked by the same dogs, so he should be highly commended, ”Lowe said.
He described the evidence from Van Meyeren and his wife Charline, and their insistence that the dogs be kept behind a closed door, as “far from impressive” and, in some cases, contradictory.
He also ordered a punitive cost order against Van Meyeren for initially denying that the dogs belonged to him, although both he and Charline, after seeing the dogs covered in blood, knew that it was their animals that were involved in the attack.
TimesLIVE
