Healer of a slap therapy has already been charged with the death of a six-year-old boy; manslaughter trial underway

July 3, 2024

An alternative “healer” accused of the manslaughter of a 71-year-old diabetic woman who died after stopping insulin therapy at his slapping workshop had previously been charged over the death of a six-year-old boy, a court heard.

Hongchi Xiao, 61, of Cloudbreak, California, is on trial at Winchester Crown Court for the manslaughter by gross negligence of Danielle Carr-Gomm, of Lewes, East Sussex.

Carr-Gomm died at Cleeve House in Seend, Wiltshire, where she attended an event in October 2016 to promote Paida Lajin therapy, in which patients are repeatedly hit or slap themselves.

During the trial, it was revealed that Xiao had previously been convicted by an Australian court of manslaughter of the six-year-old boy. The boy died because his parents stopped giving him insulin after he attended his workshops.

The court heard that Xiao asked the boy’s parents to stop giving him the life-saving medication. Although it is not suggested that the defendant gave Carr-Gomm a similar instruction, the prosecution alleges that the defendant “congratulated” Carr-Gomm after she told him she had stopped taking the medication.

Danielle Carr-Gomm, 71, attended an event to promote Paida Lajin therapy in Wiltshire in 2016 (P.A.)

The boy became seriously ill and began “vomiting black liquid,” which Xiao attributed to “the body merely using part of its own healing powers.” The boy then died in April 2015, 18 months before the Carr-Gomm case.

Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson KC told the jury that the family had attended Xiao’s Paida Lajin workshops in Hurstville, Sydney, where participants slapped themselves and each other and fasted.

He said: “The defendant himself did not slap any of the participants.

“Shortly after the workshop began, the defendant asked the boy’s mother to stop giving him insulin injections, according to the judge who tried the boy in Australia.

“Such an instruction is clear evidence of how strong the defendant’s view was that insulin, for example, was poison.”

Mr Atkinson said that on the third day, the boy’s mother told the workshop group about her son’s deteriorating health and that he was “vomiting and had high blood sugar and ketone levels”.

Despite this, Xiao continued to “instruct” the mother not to give her son insulin, the court said, and his health continued to deteriorate.

The alternative healer is accused of manslaughter of a 71-year-old diabetic woman who died after she stopped taking her insulin in his slap therapy workshop (Elisabeth Koch/PA)

From the fifth day, he had to be pushed in a stroller because he could no longer walk or stand to dress himself and began to “vomit a yellow and black liquid,” the court said.

The court was told that the mother confronted Xiao and told him: “Look at this picture, last night he vomited black stuff, all these things,” to which he replied: “This is the detoxification. All the bad stuff is coming out of his body, out of his organ. It’s just part of the body’s self-healing.”

Four days later, the boy was being escorted to his room by his grandmother when he began vomiting black liquid and had a seizure.

When the grandmother went to get help, she locked herself out of the room. Hotel staff arrived and found the boy motionless on the bed, the court heard.

Mr Atkinson said Xiao also returned and began “pounding the inside of the boy’s elbow” until paramedics arrived. But they were unable to resuscitate him and he died of diabetic ketoacidosis.

Mr Atkinson told the jury: “The defendant was ultimately charged and convicted of manslaughter (of the boy).”

“It follows that there can be no doubt that the defendant had a duty of care (to the boy) while he was attending his workshop and that he breached that duty.

“He disapproved of the use of conventional medicine and advised against its use, although he knew that it could lead to very serious, possibly even life-threatening, consequences.

“He advocated a course of action that he knew was not medically justified and contrary to medical experience. The result was the death of a boy.

“His actions towards Danielle Carr-Gomm occurred at a time when the very real, obvious and serious threat of death had become increasingly real and obvious.

“They behaved in a similar way: they congratulated a type 1 diabetic who had replaced insulin with Paida Lajin and did nothing to help her, even though the boy’s early death should have taught them a cruel lesson.”

Xiao denies the allegations and the trial continues.