An angry defendant, who is also a lawyer, was spared a contempt-of-court citation for abruptly marching out of court while a High Court judge was ruling on her case yesterday.
Startled members of the court and reporters watched as lawyer Stella Tong Choy-ting, 50, stood up, slung her handbag over her shoulder and stalked out of the courtroom while Madam Justice Esther Toh Lye-ping was speaking.
To put the incident on the court record, the judge said calmly: 'At this stage she left court, but I have decided not to bring her back for contempt. She did it because she was very agitated. I can understand her emotion.'
At the time, Toh had been explaining why she was denying Tong's appeal against an assault conviction for biting a lawyer's hand on March 11, 2009. Tong had been fined HK$4,000 and ordered to pay HK$1,000 in compensation to lawyer Jeffrey Haydn Lane.
Tong had asked for yesterday's hearing to be postponed, but Toh refused, noting the case had already been adjourned nine times since April last year.
Tong, whose legal expertise is not criminal law, was represented by a senior counsel yesterday.
Tong's assault conviction related to a dispute about her leaving a job at a company named Asia Link Profits Limited.
