Eastern Court on Wednesday opted against jailing a social worker who admitted slapping, choking and pulling the hair of a special-needs pupil at the school where he worked, instead imposing a community service order.

Mak Yan-fung, 30, will have to carry out 140 hours of community work after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing to a charge of common assault.

The court heard that Mak assaulted the 21-year-old form six pupil, who had been diagnosed with autism and intellectual disabilities, at TWGHS Tsui Tsin Tong School in October last year. The attack was caught on CCTV and the defendant subsequently resigned from the school and confessed to the police.

In mitigation, counsel for Mak quoted the defendant's former boss as saying that he had always performed well at work, and that the incident came amid a manpower shortage at the school that day.

Passing sentence, magistrate Jason Wan said that even though the charge was not serious, it did involve a breach of good faith. But taking into account the previous good conduct of the defendant and the fact that the victim was not seriously injured, a community service order was appropriate rather than imprisonment.