A man who professes to healing people by slapping them has been convicted of manslaughter after a diabetic woman d!ed at one of his slap therapy workshop.
A 71-year-old retiree, Danielle Carr-Gomm, was suffering from type 1 diabetes and approached Hongchi Xiao, 61, to heal her.
Mail Online reported that Hongchi, 61, had an ‘unshakeable’ belief that Western medicine was ‘evil’ and refused to call for help while his patient, Hongchi lay dying.
Danielle had to stop taking insulin at his four-day retreat where he performed paida lajin, a Chinese holistic therapy that involves slapping patients.
Xiao ignored medical evidence that diabetics need lifesaving insulin and ‘evangelised’ his slap therapy course as a ‘cure’ for diabetes.
He was extradited for the trial from Australia, where he had previously been prosecuted over the death of a six-year-old boy who also died after his parents withdrew his insulin medication after attending the defendant’s workshop in Sydney.
Duncan Atkinson KC, prosecuting, told the jury that Mrs Carr-Gomm had sought alternatives to her insulin medication for type 1 diabetes because of her vegetarianism and fear of needles.
She had first joined a Paida Lajin workshop, which means ‘slap and stretch’, run by the defendant in Bulgaria in July 2016.
She became seriously ill after stopping her insulin medicine before she restarted and subsequently recovered.
Mr Atkinson described how Mrs Carr-Gomm went on to attend another of Xiao’s workshops in Wiltshire in October of that year.
The court had heard how Xiao said ‘well done’ to Mrs Carr-Gomm after she told the group she had stopped taking her insulin at the week-long retreat, and she became seriously ill.
Mr Atkinson said that by the third day ‘she was vomiting, tired and weak, and by the evening she was howling in pain and unable to respond to questions’.
A chef at the workshop, Teresa Hayes, told jurors Mrs Carr-Gomm was ‘delirious’ and ‘frothing at the mouth’ before she died, adding that she wanted to call an ambulance but trusted those with more experience of the holistic healing method.
Mr Atkinson described how the defendant failed to get medical help for Mrs Carr-Gomm before she died in the early hours of the fourth day.
The prosecutor said: ‘Those who had received and accepted the defendant’s teachings misinterpreted Mrs Carr-Gomm’s condition as a healing crisis.’
He said that Xiao had been an ‘exponent’ of Paida Lajin for 10 years and had written a book on it.
Mr Atkinson said: ‘It is said to be a method of self-healing in which ‘poisonous waste’ is expelled from the body through patting and slapping parts of the body.’
He added: ‘He does not have medical qualifications or training.
‘In a book that he wrote about Paida Lajin, the defendant asserted that the taking of insulin leads to liver and eye problems and that in contrast, the Paida Lajin was ‘safer and more reliable than existing healing practices’ which would result in ‘significant improvement’ or full recovery in 90% of cases, including cases of diabetes.’
He added that Xiao also wrote in the book that ‘doctors are brainwashed by drug producers to act as salespersons for their drugs’.
The court heard that Mrs Carr-Gomm had provided a testimonial for Xiao, describing him as a ‘messenger sent by God’ who was ‘starting a revolution to put the power back in the hands of the people to cure themselves and to change the whole system of health care’.
Speaking after her death, her son Matthew Carr-Gomm, who lives in New Zealand, said: ‘She was always keen to try and find alternative methods of treating and dealing with her diabetes, and was very interested in alternative and holistic medicine and therapies.
‘I know she was desperate to try and cure herself of this disease.
‘She always maintained a healthy lifestyle and was adamant that nothing would stop her from living a full life.
‘In recent years, mum was in a great place with a partner, a lovely home and was travelling the world.
‘She had a lot of life left in her.’
He said the death of Mrs Carr-Gomm had come as a ‘huge shock’ to the family.
