AN orderly of Castle Peak Hospital who had been jailed for having sex with a mental patient was freed yesterday when the Court of Appeal held the 18 months' jail sentence was too severe. The court, allowing Leung Kwong's appeal against sentence, reduced it to a term which would allow his immediate release. The Appeal Court, comprising Mr Justice Macdougall, Mr Justice Litton and Mr Justice Bokhary, while saying mental patients needed to be protected, accepted Leung, 59, was not really in a position of trust. They also noted that he had been in custody for five months and had been sufficiently punished. Leung, who had a clear record, had admitted having sexual intercourse with the 31-year-old schizophrenia patient twice in September 1991, once in a men's lavatory and later in a library. It was not in dispute that the woman was willing and was mentally capable of giving consent. Leung was jailed by District Court Judge Beeson in February. Leung's counsel, Peter Cosgrove, on appeal, submitted it was only a technical offence, and Leung had lost his job as a result. But Senior Assistant Crown Prosecutor Andrew Bruce said that the primary object of the law was to protect mental patients, and some form of custodial sentence had to be imposed. Delivering judgment for the court, Mr Justice Litton said it had been held by a full court comprising five judges that it would not be justified to impose a deterrent sentence on a first offender.