Nanjing authorities denied there had been an improper ruling in a notorious case five years ago in which a young man was ordered to pay compensation to an elderly injured woman he claimed to have helped, saying the man had confessed to knocking her over.

However, the claim will do little to diminish the negative impact of the case, which is widely believed to have discouraged passersby from helping people in need for fear of being hit with false charges.

On April 26, 2007, a trial in Nanjing attracted nationwide attention when Xu Shoulan, 64, insisted she had been knocked down by the defendant Peng Yu, 26, and seriously injured at a bus stop on November 20, 2006.

Peng denied the allegation and said he sent Xu to a nearby hospital in an act of kindness after discovering she had fallen down.

In September 2007, despite not having sufficient evidence to reconstruct the scene, the court found Peng guilty and ordered him to pay about 45,000 yuan ($7,114) in compensation to Xu. Peng then appealed to a higher court.

The case was widely reported and picked up on the Internet, with many scholars blaming the ruling for discouraging people from lending a helping hand in similar situations.

"The truth is that a collision did happen between Peng and Xu. Peng admitted it later," Liu Zhiwei, secretary of the Nanjing Politics and Law Committee, was quoted as saying by Outlook Weekly run by Xinhua News Agency Monday, adding that the case’s negative impact was unexpected.

After further investigation, an initial written record by police showed that Peng bumped into Xu, Liu said. Peng and Xu eventually reached a settlement out of court, with Peng giving 10,000 yuan to Xu and both parties no longer talking about the case.

"It’s too late to explain. The case has already caused people to think that acts of kindness will have bad results," Li Yingsheng, a professor of sociology from the Renmin University of China.