Hong Kong  - A Hong Kong woman who slapped her Indonesian maid across the face for getting up five minutes late has been fined 2,000 Hong Kong dollars (256 US dollars), a court report said Wednesday.

Housewife Lok Hung-tan, 29, claimed she was depressed and sick with a kidney disease when she accused her 25-year-old employee called Yanti of being late last December.

She fined her 12 US dollars and when the maid objected slapped her face, causing abrasions to her lip, said the report in the South China Morning Post.

Lok appeared in court Tuesday pleading guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm and was also ordered to pay Yanti, who had worked for her since April 2007, 128 US dollars in compensation.

Sentencing Lok, magistrate Anthony Kwok said Lok was wrong to punish her maid for a mistake and that it might make Hong Kong people look like barbarians.

More than 200,000 women from the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand work as live-in maids for Hong Kong families, earning a government-set minimum wage of around 450 US dollars a month. (dpa)