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Diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 1998, Danielle Carr-Gomm had spent the larger part of two decades searching for alternative methods to control her illness.
Struggling to find a treatment that made life more bearable, it was in July 2016 that she turned to a Paida Lajin workshop – otherwise known as slapping therapy – run by Californian alternative healer Hongchi Xiao.
Rooted in traditional Chinese medicine, slapping therapy is described as a self-healing philosophy which involves the patient being slapped or slapping themselves repeatedly, for hours at a time, to rid them of toxins or illnesses.
Despite critics saying it has no scientific basis, 30 “keen disciples” of the defendant, who styled himself as “Master Xiao”, willingly joined his workshop in Cleeve House, Wiltshire, in October of that year.
Among them was 71-year-old Ms Carr-Gomm, who duly signed a disclaimer stating the practice was not “meant for medical treatment” and went on to fast for several days, only consuming Chinese tea.
Desperate to cure her diabetes in a non-conventional way due to her fear of needles, the vegetarian pensioner had previously expressed her admiration for his holistic methods, writing that she foresaw “freedom from years of slavery”.
Despite becoming drastically ill during one of his workshops months earlier, Xiao congratulated her when she revealed she had stopped taking her insulin, despite being aware of the risks this posed to her health.
In a sinister sign of the power he wielded over her, Ms Carr-Gomm had previously provided a testimonial for Xiao describing him as a “messenger sent by God” who 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”.
Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson told the court during his manslaughter trial: “Xiao knew that Danielle Carr-Gomm, by stopping her insulin injections, had created a source of danger, and he was all too aware that it was a source of danger.
“He knew of his influence over her, he knew the consequences of her not taking her insulin, and he had at least influenced and encouraged her decision to take the potentially fatal step of stopping her insulin.”
Xiao, of Cloudbreak in California, was convicted on Friday by a jury at Winchester Crown Court of manslaughter by gross negligence.
Despite the fact his slapping therapy was not rooted in science, Xiao had written a book on Paida Lajin in which he stated that “doctors are brainwashed by drug producers to act as salespersons for their drugs”.
Mr Atkinson said: “The messages that come from this book, very clearly, are that the defendant viewed drugs such as insulin as poisons which were contrary to, rather than conducive to health.
“Insulin was a cause of problems, and that in contrast, Paida Lajin was a cure for illness, including diabetes.”
The death of Ms Carr-Gomm was not the first time his methods had come under scrutiny. In 2015, he was prosecuted in Australia for the manslaughter of a six-year-old boy who had died after his parents took him to one of his workshops in Sydney. The boy, with type 1 diabetes, became fatally ill after his parents stopped giving him insulin. The judge at Xiao’s subsequent trial in Australia concluded Xiao had told the boy’s mother to stop injecting him.
During her stay at his workshop in Bulgaria, Ms Carr-Gomm had also become violently unwell after she stopped taking her injections, and had to be persuaded to resume her medication.
Mr Atkinson said that both the child’s death and the incident in Bulgaria “would have made abundantly clear to him that her [Ms Carr-Gomm’s] life was increasingly in danger.
“In short, therefore he chose to congratulate a diabetic who stopped injecting, rather than to persuade them not to take so grievous a risk to their life.”
Even when she became increasingly and seriously unwell on his latest retreat, Xiao failed to call for medical aid despite her “crying and yelling” on her bed.
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, the court was told.
Medical aid was finally called on the fourth day, 20 October, but by then it was too late and she died of diabetic ketoacidosis as a direct result of the decision to stop taking her insulin injections.
In the evenings before her death, she had been fed mashed-up couscous and had been seen drooling from the mouth and speaking incoherently. Slapping noises had also been heard from her bedroom, alongside “very loud painful noises like howling”.
A chef at the retreat described how she observed the group in the workshop slapping themselves for about five to six hours a day, by cupping their hand and hitting different areas of their body “quite hard” until there were marks on the skin.
After Xiao was arrested, he said in his police interview he had believed Ms Carr-Gomm had been weak from fasting and had not needed an ambulance.
The prosecutor said: “He denied that he had any influence over the students at all. He had no more responsibility than anyone else in attendance.”
In her desperate bid to be cured of a condition that had dogged her adult life, Ms Carr-Gomm paid the ultimate price.
Following the verdict, head of Special Crime at the Crown Prosecution Service, Rosemary Ainslie, said: “Hongchi Xiao knew the consequences of Danielle Carr-Gomm’s decision to stop taking insulin could be fatal; he had seen it before.
“Hongchi Xiao was the man in charge, yet he failed to respond to Ms Carr-Gomm’s worsening condition, with tragic consequences. His failure to take reasonable steps to help Ms Carr-Gomm substantially contributed to her death and amounted to gross negligence.”
Xiao will be sentenced on 1 October.
