An alternative healer has been found guilty of the gross negligence manslaughter of a diabetic woman who died after she stopped taking her insulin at his slapping therapy workshop.
Danielle Carr-Gomm, 71, was one of 30 “keen disciples” of Hongchi Xiao who attended the week-long retreat at Cleeve House in Seend, Wiltshire, in October 2016, Winchester Crown Court heard.
Xiao, 61, who has no medical qualifications or training, had been an “exponent” of paida lajin therapy, which sees patients being slapped or slapping themselves repeatedly, for 10 years and had written a book on it.
Mrs Carr-Gomm, from Lewes, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 1998 and had sought alternatives to her insulin medication because of her vegetarianism and fear of needles.
The court heard Xiao, who was described as “Master Xiao” in the programme for the workshop, said “well done” after she told the group she had stopped taking her insulin.
But she became seriously ill and was “crying on her bed and howling in pain” before she died of diabetic ketoacidosis on the fourth day of the course on 20 October 2016.
Hongchi Xiao delivers a 2015 lecture. Pic: CPS
Prosecutors said the therapist, from Cloudbreak, California, knew she was risking death and failed to seek medical help for her.
Xiao denied a charge of manslaughter by gross negligence and told jurors he would “never” persuade someone not to take their insulin, but he was found guilty after a trial.
The court heard he was previously convicted in an Australian court of the manslaughter of a six-year-old boy who died in April 2015, 18 months before Mrs Carr-Gomm, when his parents stopped giving him his insulin after attending one of Xiao’s workshops in Sydney.
The youngster became seriously ill and started “vomiting black liquid”, which Xiao put down “to just part of self-healing body adjustment”, the jury was told.
Court artist drawing of Hongchi Xiao appearing at Winchester Crown Court. Pic: Elizabeth Cook/PA
‘Learned from kung fu masters’
Xiao told jurors he stopped working in finance in the early 2000s because he “wanted to do something else more meaningful” and travelled in the mountainous areas of China, where he learnt various methods relating to natural healing, from fishermen to kung fu masters.
He said he studied methods such as acupuncture, cupping and massage, and practised natural healing in Tibet, where he was invited by monks and stayed in a monastery treating 100 people a day before learning paida lajin.
Meaning “slap and stretch”, 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.
Footage from a 2015 lecture in India shows Xiao teaching attendees how to slap the inside of their elbows as he tells them: “No pain, no gain.”
He brings one man, who says he has heart disease, on stage and slaps his arm to heighten the bruise, telling the crowd: “This is what we call poison blood.”
“The harder, the longer, the more quickly it disappears,” Xiao says.
‘Messenger sent by God’
Mrs Carr-Gomm first joined one of Xiao’s workshops in Bulgaria in July 2016, where she also fell ill after stopping taking her insulin.
In a video testimonial, she addresses Xiao as “master” and tells him: “You’re definitely a messenger sent by God because you’re 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.”
The court heard participants at the Wiltshire retreat signed a disclaimer form which stated the practice was not “meant for medical treatment” and they fasted for several days, only consuming a Chinese tea.
Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson KC said Mrs Carr-Gomm’s decision to stop taking her insulin injections came amid the “exposure to the evangelism” of Xiao “that insulin was poison and that paida lajin represented an alternative”.
“He knew that Mrs Carr-Gomm was risking death, and he knew that he had an influence over her decision,” he told jurors during the trial.
“In short, therefore, he chose to congratulate a diabetic who stopped injecting, rather than to persuade them not to take so grievous a risk to their life.”
Not a medical doctor
Giving evidence, Xiao said he was “not a medical doctor, so everyone is responsible for their own medication”.
“Secondly I’m not fully against medicine, what I’m concerned about is the side effect of the medicine,” he said.
“To stop medication there is one condition, you don’t do all of it suddenly, you do it gradually – you must always check.”
Senior Crown prosecutor Ben Southam said gross negligence manslaughter convictions are still quite rare but Xiao’s case was “particularly unusual”.
“I think he’s dangerous because he’s practising a method of self-healing which isn’t recognised in Chinese medicine and in two workshops he’s conducted two people have died,” he said.
“Also Danielle had suffered a severe reaction in an earlier workshop in July 2016 in Bulgaria.”