An alternative healer killed a diabetic grandmother at a “slap therapy” workshop by stopping her insulin and refusing to call for help as she lay dying, a court heard.
Hongchi Xiao, 61, had an “unshakeable” belief that Western medicine was “evil” and congratulated Danielle Carr-Gomm when she stopped taking insulin during his four-day retreat.
The 71-year-old fell gravely ill and began vomiting and crying with pain during the 2016 paida lajin (“slapping and stretching”) workshop, before dying of diabetic ketoacidosis.
She had turned to the alternative treatment because she did not like injecting insulin due to her fear of needles, prosecutors said.
The Chinese holistic therapy involves slapping patients, and Xiao, from California, had evangelised his course as a cure for diabetes, jurors were told.
Xiao is on trial at Winchester Crown Court after denying Mrs Carr-Gomm’s manslaughter. He was convicted of manslaughter in Australia after a diabetic six-year-old boy stopped taking insulin under his instruction and died during his workshop just 17 months before Mrs Carr-Gomm’s death.
The pensioner, from Lewes, East Sussex, died at the healer’s course at Cleeve House in Melksham, Wiltshire, in October 2016.
She had attended one of his workshops in Bulgaria that July, but became “extremely unwell” when she temporarily stopped taking insulin, Duncan Atkinson KC, prosecuting, said.
Nevertheless, when she began the Wiltshire retreat, Mrs Carr-Gomm stopped taking insulin once again under Xiao’s instruction, jurors heard.
“She announced this on the first day and had been congratulated by the defendant when she did so,” Mr Atkinson said.
“He (Xiao) knew Mrs Carr-Gomm was risking death, and he knew that he had an influence over her decision.”
On the second day, Mrs Carr-Gomm was crying and yelling from her bed and began to vomit in the same way she had in Bulgaria, Mr Atkinson said.
“On day three — October 19 — she was vomiting, tired and weak, and by the evening she was howling in pain and unable to respond to questions.
“She was moved from her bed to a mattress on the floor because she fell from the bed.”
Xiao had persuaded the other attendees that Mrs Carr-Gomm’s symptoms were part of a “healing crisis”, jurors heard.
And he refused to advise her to take her insulin or call for medical assistance, Mr Atkinson added.
“Both his experience with [the six-year-old boy] and with Mrs Carr-Gomm in Bulgaria would have made it abundantly clear to him that her life was increasingly in danger.
“In that period of increasing danger, the medical evidence is that Mrs Carr-Gomm’s life could have been saved if medical aid was called.
“By the time that such medical aid was finally called… it was too late, and Danielle Carr-Gomm had died of diabetic ketoacidosis as a direct result of the decision to stop taking her insulin.
“That decision was taken in the context of Mrs Carr-Gomm’s exposure to the evangelism, the confident belief, of this defendant that insulin was a poison.
“The defendant… assumed a position of leadership and control over Mrs Carr-Gomm and her care as she declined and died, and owed her a duty, which he failed to meet, to help and care for her.”
The trial continues.
