PETERBOROUGH, ONT.—The wife of a man in a dramatic video that showed a 74-year-old cyclist being beaten with a club before bystanders intervened to stop the bloody altercation said, “it’s not what it looks like at all.”

David Fox, 65, is charged with aggravated assault and assault with a weapon. Fox did not appear Thursday when the matter was addressed for the first time in court. He was represented by his lawyer John Whelton.

The case was put over until Sept. 22.

A video taken by a bystander on July 18 shows the cyclist on the ground with his attacker on top of him, striking him over and over in the head and torso. It shows the attacker stopping when witnesses approached and intervened.

The victim was bleeding profusely from his head after he got up.

When the woman who recorded the video approached the attacker, he said in his defence that “I tried to walk away.”

The victim’s bike was lying on the street, beside the attacker’s truck.

Additional witnesses tried to keep the driver in the area until police arrived but he drove off in his truck.

The victim was treated and released from Peterborough Regional Hospital. Police said the two men did not know each other.

“I’ll tell you one thing, it’s not what it looks like at all,” said Fox’s wife, Sandra, outside her house, when approached by the Star. “All everybody caught was the last two minutes of it, not how it started or why it started.”