Alternative healer guilty of killing diabetic woman at slapping therapy workshop

An alternative healer who failed to get medical help for a 71-year-old diabetic woman who died after she stopped taking insulin at his slapping therapy retreat has been found guilty of her manslaughter.

- TARA COBHAM

Danielle Carr-Gomm died at Cleeve House in Seend, Wiltshire, in October 2016 while taking part in the paida lajin therapy event. Paida lajin therapy involves patients being slapped or slapping themselves repeatedly.

Hongchi Xiao, of Cloudbreak, California, was convicted by the jury at Winchester Crown Court of the manslaughter by gross negligence of Carr-Gomm, from Lewes, East Sussex.

Xiao, aged 61, was extradited for the trial from Australia, where he had previously been prosecuted over the death of a six-yearold boy who also died when his parents withdrew his insulin medication after attending the defendant's workshop in Sydney.

The court heard that Carr-Gomm, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 1999, was left "howling in pain" as she became seriously ill. She died on the fourth day of the workshop.

Duncan Atkinson KC, prosecuting, told the jury that CarrGomm had sought alternatives to the insulin medication she had been prescribed for her diabetes, because of her vegetarianism and fear of needles. She had first joined a paida lajin workshop run by the defendant in Bulgaria in July 2016. She became seriously ill after stopping her insulin medicine, before she resumed taking it and subsequently recovered.

Mr Atkinson described how Carr-Gomm went on to attend another of Xiao's workshops in Wiltshire in October of that year.