‘Slapping therapy’ healer jailed for gross negligence manslaughter of woman
Hongchi Xiao was sentenced to 15 years after a jury
found him guilty of the manslaughter of Danielle Carr-Gomm, 71,
who had type 1 diabetes and fell fatally ill after she stopped taking her insulin and fasted during one of hispaida lajin
therapy retreats.The prosecution argued Xiao, who is addressed as “master” by his followers, had a duty of care towards Carr-Gomm and failed to take reasonable steps to encourage her to take insulin and to summon medical help when it was clearly required.
When she became seriously ill at the workshop in a country house in 2016, crying in pain and weakening, Xiao blamed her decline on a “healing crisis”.
The prosecution said Xiao should have been aware of the danger Carr-Gomm was in because the year before her death,
a six-year-old boy with type 1 diabetes died at a workshop he ran in Australia
after Xiao told his mother to stop giving him insulin. Xiao was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter over the boy’s death.During his trial at Winchester crown court, Xiao described how
paida lajin
from kung fu masters and hermits in the mountains of China
and had spread the forgotten method to millions of people around the world.Xiao, who was born in China, said he had quit a lucrative career in finance to focus on
paida lajin
and was not in it to make money. He said the technique, which involves slapping and stretching, was easy to learn, helped tackle every disease known to humans, and reduced the need for patients to take “western” medicine with “poisonous” side-effects.After Carr-Gomm’s death, Xiao was arrested. He was then taken to Australia, convicted of manslaughter for the 2015 death of the six-year-old boy and jailed. The judge in Australia concluded Xiao had told the boy’s mother to stop injecting him. He was subsequently brought back to the UK to face trial over Carr-Gomm’s death.
Describing Xiao as a “complete fraud”, Carr-Gomm’s family said: “While we cannot bring our mother back, we hope this case at least highlights the dangers of pursuing unregulated alternative therapies without proper research.”
The 15 year-sentence comprises 10 years’ detention and an extended licence period of five years. Time will be taken off for periods when he awaited extradition from Australia and on remand before his trial.