Slap therapist Hongchi Xiao admits lying to police

An alternative healer on trial for manslaughter lied during a police interview to avoid being mistaken for a doctor, a court has heard.

Hongchi Xiao, 61, of Cloudbreak in California, made the admission under cross-examination at Winchester Crown Court, where he is facing prosecution over the death of Danielle Carr-Gomm at a slapping therapy workshop in Wiltshire in 2016.

The court previously heard that when police asked him if he had given Ms Carr-Gomm – a Type 1 diabetic seeking an alternative to insulin – personal advice about her medication, he said he had not.

But Mr Xiao, who denies manslaughter, admitted earlier that this was not true and that he had told her at the Wiltshire workshop the day before she died to resume taking her insulin.

Ms Carr-Gomm, 71, died during a residential workshop partly led by Mr Xiao in Seend, Wiltshire, from a complication typical of diabetics who do not take insulin.

The workshop promoted a treatment known as ‘paida lajin’ – in which people slap themselves and each other to expel poisons from the body.

He told the court: “The police were trying to get me into a position of a medical doctor. If you say take or stop, that is the role of a doctor. I was afraid of the police, I admit.”

Mr Xiao has been open in court that he has no medical training.

He also denied that if he had asked Ms Carr-Gomm to resume taking insulin at the Wiltshire workshop, she would have done so.

He said Mrs Carr-Gomm was “stubborn” and “she didn’t listen to me”, even though Ms Carr-Gomm had described him as like a “messenger from God”.

Mr Xiao said he found her the evening before she died “weak and tired” in her room at the hotel in Seend but said she understood what he was saying.

He said: “I asked her first of all to eat and then to drink tea and then to take insulin.”

He thought she was in the midst of a ‘healing crisis’, which he believes occurs as the body heals itself after paida lajin therapy.

Initially, she refused food and drink but eventually drank ginger tea and ate some couscous.

The court heard he first met Mrs Carr-Gomm at a workshop in Bulgaria the previous year.

She became ill after cutting insulin and fasting.

Mr Xiao told her then that she should resume eating and drinking and continue to take insulin – which she did.

Mr Xiao also repeatedly said he always told participants not to cut medication suddenly but to do it gradually.

She provided him with a glowing testimonial after that workshop and said she had been able to reduce her insulin by half.

Becoming enthusiastic about paida lajin, she offered courses herself at her home and booked to attend the workshop in Seend, Wiltshire.

He said Mrs Carr-Gomm told him in Wiltshire she had checked and her blood sugar was normal.

Mr Xiao denied congratulating her on this – as the prosecution have claimed – but said he was pleased about it, because he believed it showed his paida lajin therapy worked and had “scientific proof”.

Mrs Carr-Gomm died during the course from ketoacidosis, a known complication for diabetics who stop taking insulin.

The case continues.