Central Highlands Water to face retrial over Ballarat meter reader dog attack

A Victorian water company will face retrial after a big-mouthed dog that looked “like the man out of Batman” tore “bits and pieces” off a meter reader’s leg in Ballarat.

Central Highlands Water meter reader Stephen Dean was attacked by a dog he said looked like “The Joker”. Picture: Warner Bros Entertainment

A Victorian water company will face retrial over a vicious dog attack by a beast dubbed ‘The Joker’ on one of its Ballarat meter readers.

At the Supreme Court in October, Stephen James Dean, 65, appealed a County Court judgement from March this year.

He had sought damages from his employer, public utility company Central Highlands Region Water Corporation, over a dog attack that occurred on the job in 2018.

Court documents reveal that on July 23 that year, Mr Dean was reading a meter on Humffray St North when he was attacked by an American pit bull x staffy.

Mr Dean described the dog as “very muscly, big head, stocky, solid”, with a face “like the man out of Batman”.

“I still see it,” he said.

“The Joker, whatever his name is.

“It just had a big mouth and just coming at me.”

Mr Dean had worked as a meter reader for about four years before the dog attack.

Mr Dean hit the dog with a screwdriver, but described seeing “bits and pieces” of his leg “going in the air” after falling over during the attack.

“When its mouth was wrapped around me leg, because it was big – I thought, it’s all over here, I’m done through,” Mr Dean said.

The dog even pulled Mr Dean off a fence as he tried to escape.

Two tradesmen intervened, kicking the dog and putting it in a headlock, while Mr Dean was “told not to look at his leg”.

He was taken to hospital in shock, suffering thigh, leg, and psychological injuries.

In the County Court trial that followed, Judge Katherine Bourke did not allow a particular argument to be put to the jury, namely that if Mr Dean had had training or animal repellent spray, he might have been less injured in the attack; instead, the jury was only to consider whether training or repellent would have prevented his injuries entirely.

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The jury consequently found no negligence on the part of Central Highlands Water.

However, at the Supreme Court in October, Mr Dean sought to appeal that direction by the judge, with Central Highlands Water conceding that she erred, but still opposing the appeal.

There was further dispute over, if the appeal were allowed, which court should hear the case, and which parts of the case should be heard at all.

In a judgement handed down on December 12, Judges Cameron Macaulay, James Gorton, and John Forrest allowed Mr Dean’s appeal, determining that Judge Bourke had erred in not considering the “less severe injury case”, that there was a “substantial wrong or miscarriage in the trial”, and that a new trial should be held at the County Court based on all of the issues raised.