A man who slapped a young waitress in the face in an Adelaide bubble tea cafe when she complained about being underpaid has been convicted of assault, but spared jail, after a magistrate declared him to be a "good man" of "excellent character".
Lei "Gavin" Guo, 39, pleaded guilty in June to hitting the woman at the Gouger Street Fun Tea cafe in Adelaide's Chinatown district.
He was charged with basic assault after a video emerged online of him slapping the woman across the face in January.
Guo failed to show up to his first court appearance in May due to needing to isolate as he waited on a COVID-19 test result.
He later told the Adelaide Magistrates Court the young victim had been rude to him and his wife and he mistakenly believed she was complaining to her manager about him.
A video of the assault has been viewed tens of millions of times.
Magistrate John Fahey said the community expected Guo would be convicted.
"You could have hurt this young woman and a blow to the head carries with it a significant risk of injury."
Guo was convicted on Wednesday but was handed a two-and-a-half-year good behaviour bond rather than a jail sentence.
"I believe you are a good man but sometimes good people do bad things."
Guo's lawyer Martin Anders previously asked for his client to be spared a conviction, and for the court to consider the totality of his circumstances.
Mr Anders said Guo was worried about being able to travel to China in the future to visit his parents and for work, and about being able to secure loans for his property development business because banks now required police clearances.
Mr Fahey noted the high level of attention the case had received and said many people had been shocked by Guo's attack.
He said the community would expect such an attack to at least receive a conviction.
The court heard Guo was a highly respected member of the Chinese community whose wife and children had been victimised due to the publicity his crime received.
It heard he had received death threats and some parents had asked for his children to be expelled from their school.
The court was told Guo had been in an emotionally triggered and agitated state due to work stress and a neck injury when he arrived at the tea shop with his family.
He has since been receiving psychosocial therapy and is considered to have a low risk of re-offending.
Protesters holding placards urging an end to violence against women gathered outside the court ahead of Guo's sentencing.
In an exclusive interview with the ABC, the victim — now aged 21, but 20 at the time — said her mental health had declined since the incident and she was afraid she would never work again.
"I was afraid to go outside, just so afraid of meeting other people, of strangers, that I was afraid to go to class when school started," she said.
