Slapping therapist jailed over woman’s death loses appeal

California-based Hongchi Xiao, now in his 60s, was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter in July 2024 over the death of 71-year-old Danielle Carr-Gomm, who died in October 2016 while attending one of his 'Paida Lajin' therapy workshops in Seend, Wiltshire.

Xiao's 'slap and stretch' therapy involved participants repeatedly hitting themselves or each other.

Ms Carr-Gomm stopped taking insulin at the workshop and later became seriously ill.

Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson KC said that by day three she was “vomiting, tired and weak, and by the evening she was howling in pain and unable to respond to questions.”

Hongchi Xiao (Image: Wiltshire Police)

She died on day four of the workshop.

Xiao was extradited from Australia after a young boy died at another of his workshops in Sydney after being taken off insulin.

He was sentenced in the UK to 10 years in prison.

Xiao claimed the trial judge misdirected jurors over a liability waiver Ms Carr-Gomm signed before the workshop.

His lawyers said Mr Justice Bright's handling of the waiver and evidence from another participant had made the verdict unsafe.

Lord Justice Dingemans, sitting with Mr Justice Murray and Judge Andrew Lees, dismissed the appeal at the Court of Appeal.

Lord Justice Dingemans said Mr Justice Bright was “entitled to set out the evidence as he understood it,” and his waiver comments had not made the trial unfair or the verdict unsafe.

Lord Justice Dingemans said: “As it is we do not consider that the judge’s comments about the waiver rendered the trial unfair or the verdict unsafe.

“This is because the judge was simply pointing out that the waiver did not reflect the reality of the relationship between Ms Carr-Gomm and Mr Xiao.”

He accepted that Mr Justice Bright misdirected jurors by suggesting the waiver could decide a civil case but not a criminal one.

But he said that would only have further weakened Xiao's defence.

He said: “A legally correct direction from the judge would have created more difficulties for Mr Xiao because it would have made plain that Mr Xiao was seeking to rely on a waiver that had no legal effect.”

Ms Carr-Gomm called Xiao a “messenger sent by God” in a testimonial praising his methods.

She attended the workshop seeking an alternative to insulin because she was vegetarian and feared needles.

A few months earlier, she had attended a workshop in Bulgaria, where she also stopped taking insulin and became seriously ill before recovering.