Court Clears Social Worker, Rejects Police Testimony

West Kowloon Court on Wednesday acquitted a social worker of obstructing police during a protest last year, saying an officer who gave testimony in court turned out to be an unreliable witness.

Hui Lai-ming, the director of the Social Workers' General Union, was charged in relation to an anti-government protest in Admiralty on September 29, 2019.

But magistrate May Chung said there were key differences between video footage of what happened and the testimony provided by the officer.

She said the defendant had followed police instructions as she was leaving the scene, and while the pair came into contact with each other, it was only by accident that the officer fell down, twice.

Speaking outside the court after the hearing, Hui said she was glad to have been cleared.

"I had to think about maybe I have to go to jail, all these things made me so frustrated and sad. So, to be frank, when I heard the result, my tears dropped. Maybe that's happy tears," she told reporters.

Hui was initially charged with assaulting police, but this was changed to the obstruction charge by prosecutors, just before the start of her trial last week.

Her lawyers complained that the last-minute change was because video footage proved that no assault had taken place.

Police have been repeatedly found to have given unreliable evidence in protest-related court cases. Only on Tuesday, a magistrate had ruled that testimony provided to the court by an officer did not match video footage of what happened.