“Lesson not learned” by slapping therapist after boy’s death, court says

An alternative healer failed to take appropriate measures to save a dying woman despite the “cruel lesson” he learned from the death of a child at one of his slapping workshops, a court was told.

Hongchi Xiao is accused of manslaughter through gross negligence after allegedly congratulating diabetic Danielle Carr-Gomm on stopping her insulin treatment.

She died in a slapping workshop run by Mr Xiao in Wiltshire, 18 months after six-year-old Aiden died in one of his workshops in Australia, Winchester Crown Court heard.

Following Aiden’s death, Mr Xiao was convicted of manslaughter by an Australian court, the jury in Winchester heard.

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Ms Carr-Gomm, from Lewes in East Sussex, was attending a Paida Lajin workshop led by Mr Xiao at Cleeve House in Seend when she died in October 2016.

The 71-year-old suffered from type 1 diabetes and had to inject insulin daily to keep her blood sugar levels under control.

Paida Lajin means “hitting and stretching” and is a method in which “toxic waste products” are eliminated from the body by tapping and hitting parts of the body.

In a statement on the two deaths, prosecutor Duncan Atkinson KC said on Wednesday: “His actions towards Danielle Carr-Gomm occurred at a time when the very real, obvious and serious risk 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.”

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

Mr Atkinson told the jury that Aiden and his family attended Mr Xiao’s Paida Lajin workshops in Hurstville, Sydney, in April 2015.

“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 strongly the defendant was convinced, for example, that insulin was poison,” he said.

On the third day, the boy’s mother told the workshop group that her son’s health was deteriorating and that he was suffering from “vomiting, high blood sugar levels and high ketone levels,” the jury said.

Despite this, Mr Xiao continued to “instruct” the mother not to give her son insulin, the court was told.

As a result, his health deteriorated and by the fifth day he was unable to walk, stand or dress himself, the jury said.

He also began to “vomit a yellow and black liquid,” the court was told.

The boy’s mother confronted Mr Xiao about her son’s deteriorating health and he told her it was “the bad things” coming out of his body and this was “part of the body’s self-healing”, the court was told.

Four days later, the boy again vomited a black liquid, suffered a seizure and later died, Atkinson said.

Mr Xiao tended to the “motionless” boy and began tapping him on the insides of his elbows until paramedics arrived, the jury heard.

The court was told that they were unable to resuscitate him and that the cause of death was determined to be 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 towards (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 which he knew was not medically justified and contrary to medical experience. As a result, a boy died,” Mr Atkinson added.

Mr Xiao denies the charge of manslaughter through gross negligence in connection with the death of Ms Carr-Gomm. The trial continues.