Kerrie Ann Barry was accused of using a high-pressure hose on the 36-year-old man at a Mount Ousley group home in September 2019, leaving him with painful welts and redness on his leg and back that required medical attention.

But magistrate Gabriel Fleming dismissed the charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, following a hearing at Wollongong Local Court last month.

Speaking outside court yesterday, Miss Barry said it was a relief to have the charge dropped and she sought to return to caring for people.

She said she had been a carer since she was 14 and had cared for the man in question for 20 years, so it was "quite heartbreaking" to be accused of offending against him.

On the morning of the incident, the man - who had autism, anxiety and cerebral palsy, and was mostly non-verbal - became agitated and defecated in the backyard of the group home.

Miss Barry then used a high-pressure hose to clean a path, and during the process, the man came into contact with the stream of water.

The prosecution submitted Miss Barry had acted intentionally or recklessly in harming the man, but defence argued it was an accident.

Ms Fleming said yesterday that she could not accept the prosecution's submission.

She referred to evidence given at the hearing that the man frequently experienced "elevated states" and could be "unpredictable".

There was evidence from other staff that the hose was often used to clean faeces at the home, Ms Fleming said, and there was no direction to use it around this resident.

Miss Barry also gave evidence at the hearing, and Ms Fleming said she was "an impressive witness".

She said inconsistencies in her evidence were not so material that she could not accept her account as a whole.

Ms Fleming also noted Miss Barry had no criminal history and had come before the court as a person of good character.

The prosecution put to the court that Miss Barry's account that the injured man had run around the corner and been struck accidentally was untenable because the hose's water flow stopped immediately when the trigger was released.

Miss Barry gave evidence that while she knew the man was outside, he was out of sight and within seconds of him coming into view she had released the trigger.

"That account, in my view, is plausible and the defendant appeared to me to be truthful," Ms Fleming said.

Miss Barry held the trigger longer than she should have, she said, but it was not done intentionally nor recklessly, and the prosecution had failed to prove this criminal element of the carer's actions.

Ms Fleming said there was nothing to suggest in the years that Miss Barry had been a carer, that she had been anything but a "caring and responsible" person.