‘Unprovoked assault’ could pack a costly punch

DURBAN: Broker Clint Barnard has potentially thrown his most expensive punch.

A Hillcrest-based insurance company director wants him to pay him R500 000 for what he claims was an unprovoked assault at the Keg and Trout in June 2013, which left him with a broken nose.

Zach Buchan, a director of The Unlimited Group, told yesterday of how he was knocked unconscious when he was punched in the face by a complete stranger. Part of his claim is also for malicious prosecution because Barnard laid charges of assault against him, resulting in his arrest and having to appear in court several times before they were dropped.

Central to the civil trial, which began before Durban High Court Judge Johan Ploos van Amstel yesterday, is video footage from two cameras in the pub which show the assault from two different angles. The judge viewed the video yesterday, but Barnard’s lawyers are challenging its admissibility, questioning “its source and origin” because the original went missing from the criminal docket.

In an opening argument, Buchan’s advocate, Jean Marais, said Barnard had belatedly pleaded self-defence. At issue, he said, was a “narrow factual dispute” over whether his client was punched “with a full blow to the face” or whether it was possible that his client’s injuries were caused by Barnard “putting his hands up to protect himself ”, as he said in a statement to the police.

Marais said Barnard had given a different version of events at the ongoing criminal trial and only now admitted to actually hitting Buchan.

Buchan, 39, said he had gone to a Kearsney Old Boys function that Friday night. Afterwards he and others had gone to an “after party” at the Keg. He said he had been chatting to Taryn Miller, whom he had met for the first time that night, when Barnard – whom he also did not know – approached them. “He stood there for maybe 30 seconds and without saying a word he punched me with such force my beer flew out of my hand and I was thrown backwards by one to two metres.” He said there was “absolutely no reason” for the attack.

He denied that he had raised his glass towards Barnard or that he had threatened his life. Buchan said he laid the criminal charge against Barnard and he later discovered that Barnard had laid an assault charge against him later that week. That charge was dropped after the magistrate viewed the CCTV footage. Miller backed up Buchan’s version that he had been punched for no reason.

During cross-examination Barnard’s advocate, Sydney Alberts, suggested his client had “mistakenly believed he was under attack”.