A Chinese alternative healer was today found guilty of manslaughter after telling a diabetic mother not to take her insulin during a £750 slap therapy course.
Hongchi Xiao, 61, refused to call for help while 71-year-old Danielle Carr-Gomm was left ‘howling in pain’ before dying during one of his workshops.
The trial heard how Xiao had an ‘unshakeable’ belief that Western medicine was ‘evil’ and congratulated Ms Carr-Gomm when she stopped taking her medication.
But the grandmother began vomiting during the 2016 workshop at Cleeve House in Melksham, Wiltshire, before dying of ketoacidosis.
Hongchi Xiao, 61, has been found guilty of the manslaughter of Danielle Carr-Gomm
Mrs Carr-Gomm, a follower of Xiao’s who wanted to get rid of her type 1 diabetes, fell gravely ill over the course of the October 2016 workshop
Many medical practitioners have criticised the practice, saying that it causes bruises and results in broken blood vessels leading to horrific injuries such as those pictured above
The Chinese holistic therapy involves slapping patients, and Xiao, from Cloudbreak, California, had evangelised his course as a cure for diabetes.
But the dangerous world of slap therapy has been under the spotlight before.
Xiao was previously convicted of manslaughter in Australia after a diabetic six-year-old stopped taking insulin under his instruction and died during a £990 workshop, just 18 months before Mrs Carr-Gomm’s death, jurors were told.
Ms Carr-Gomm had turned to the alternative treatment because she did not like injecting insulin due to her fear of needles.
She had previously attended one of his workshops in Bulgaria that July, but became ‘extremely unwell’ when she temporarily stopped taking insulin.
But when she began the Wiltshire retreat, Type 1 diabetic Ms Carr-Gomm stopped taking insulin once again under Xiao’s instruction.
‘She announced this on the first day, and had been congratulated by the defendant when she did so,’ Duncan Atkinson KC, prosecuting previously told the trial.
On the workshop’s second day, Ms Carr-Gomm was heard crying and yelling from her bed and began to vomit in the same way she had in Bulgaria.
By day three, she was vomiting, tired and weak, and by the evening she was howling in paid and unable to respond to questions.
She was moved from her bed to a mattress on the floor because she fell from the bed.
At this point, Xiao had persuaded the other attendees that the patient’s symptoms were part of a ‘healing crisis’.
He refused to advise her to take her insulin or call for medical assistance, the jury heard.
By the time medical aid was finally called on day four, it was too late.
Ms Carr-Gomm had died of diabetic ketoacidosis as a direct result of the decision to stop taking her insulin injections.
Danielle Carr-Gomm, 71, who had diabetes, ended up dead from the consequences of Xaio’s unorthodox methods
A significant purple bruise, appearing as though made with the palm of a hand, appears on a paida lajin participant’s tummy
Court sketch of Xiao at Winchester Crown Court
A person covered in red marks across the backs of their legs after taking part in paida lajin
Xiao, at a workshop in 2015, is pictured performing his paida lajin slapping and stretching method on a willing participant
The trial heard how Ms Carr-Gomm viewed Xiao as a ‘messenger sent by God’, even referring to him as ‘Master Xiao’ at the workshop, and attendees branded his ‘keen disciples’.
Ms Carr-Gomm had previously attended another of Xiao’s workshops in Bulgaria and left him glowing testimonials.
In one left on his website, she said: ‘You are definitely messenger sent by God.’
She said Xiao 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.’
She added: ‘I admire you and thank you from the bottom of my heart.’
Paida lajin means ‘slap and stretch’ in Chinese, and practitioners like Xiao – who has no medical qualifications – believe the practice of slapping people in various positions can cure diseases and ailments.
Xiao, who listened to a translation of the court proceedings through a headset, will be sentenced at a later date.
