A Self-professed healer has been convicted of manslaughter after a diabetic woman died at his slap therapy workshop.
71-year-old Danielle Carr-Gomm was hoping to get rid of her type 1 diabetes and wanted Hongchi Xiao, 61, to heal her.
According to report, Hongchi, 61, had an ‘unshakeable’ belief that Western medicine is ‘evil’ and refused to call for help while lay dying.
WHAT HAPPENED TO DANIELLE?
Danielle had to stop taking insulin at his four-day retreat where he performed paida lajin, a Chinese holistic therapy that involves slapping patients.
Xiao ignored medical evidence that diabetics need lifesaving insulin and ‘evangelised’ his slap therapy course as a ‘cure’ for diabetes.
He was extradited for the trial from Australia, where he had previously been prosecuted over the death of a six-year-old boy who also died after his parents withdrew his insulin medication after attending the defendant’s workshop in Sydney.
COURT HEARD
The court had heard how Xiao said ‘well done’ to Mrs Carr-Gomm after she told the group she had stopped taking her insulin at the week-long retreat, and she became seriously ill.
Mr Atkinson said that by the third day ‘she was vomiting, tired and weak, and by the evening she was howling in pain and unable to respond to questions’.
STATEMENT FROM WITNESS
A chef at the workshop, Teresa Hayes, told jurors Mrs Carr-Gomm was ‘delirious’ and ‘frothing at the mouth’ before she died, adding that she wanted to call an ambulance but trusted those with more experience of the holistic healing method.
Mr Atkinson described how the defendant failed to get medical help for Mrs Carr-Gomm before she died in the early hours of the fourth day.
Xiao will be sentenced on October 1.
