A 77yo man has been charged with murder and attempted murder after an incident in Waiau, Coromandel yesterday. Kiwibank predicts growth in 2025, record migrant numbers leave NZ.
Hongchi Xiao, who believes Western medicine is “poisonous”, was found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence after a trial at WinchesterCrown Court in July this year. He has been in custody since the trial.
Danielle Carr-Gomm died while taking part in a week-long “Paida Lajin”, meaning “slap and stretch”, retreat in Wiltshire in 2016.
The 71-year-old, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 1999, died in agony after she was encouraged to stop taking insulin during the workshop by Xiao.
Hongchi Xiao has been sentenced to 10 years for manslaughter after encouraging a diabetic 71-year-old to abandon insulin.
On Friday local time, he was sentenced to serve 10 years in prison, plus a five-year extended licence period, over the death of Carr-Gomm by Judge Robert Bright.
Judge Bright said Xiao knew from the first day of the therapy workshop that Carr-Gomm had stopped taking her medication. “Furthermore you made it clear to her you supported this,” he said.
He said Xiao made a “token effort” to get her to take her insulin which was “too little, too late”.
He added that he showed “no real sign of clear remorse” as he continued to practise and promote Paida Lajin in prison.
“I consider you dangerous even though you do not share the characteristics of most other dangerous offenders,” he said.
The judge said that Xiao’s suggestion during the trial that Carr-Gomm was ultimately responsible for her own death was “repugnant and disturbing”.
Jurors were told Carr-Gomm had sought alternatives to her insulin medication because of her vegetarianism and fear of needles.
Danielle Carr-Gomm, 71, died at Cleeve House in Seend, Wiltshire, where she was taking part in a workshop to help her diabetes.
She joined the Paida Lajin workshop run by Xiao in Wiltshire in October 2016.
She previously attended another in Bulgaria in July, where she also stopped her insulin medication and became seriously ill.
The court heard that Xiao said “well done” to Carr-Gomm, after she told the participants in Wiltshire she had stopped taking her insulin at the retreat.
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”, prosecutor Duncan Atkinson KC said.
Aidan Fenton died after his parents withdrew his insulin medication after one of Xiao's workshops in Australia.
A chef at the workshop, Teresa Hayes, told jurors she wanted to call an ambulance but trusted those with more experience of the holistic healing method.
Atkinson said: “Those who had received and accepted the defendant’s teachings misinterpreted Mrs Carr-Gomm’s condition as a healing crisis.”
Atkinson said: “It is said to be a method of self-healing in which ‘poisonous waste’ is expelled from the body through patting and slapping parts of the body.”
Charles Row KC, mitigating on Xiao’s behalf, said Mrs Carr-Gomm knew how to treat her condition and had insulin with her but acknowledged Xiao’s “ego” had got in the way.
He added: “This Paida Lajin is slapping and stretching, it is in and of itself safe, but it does need to be explained properly.”
Detective Chief Inspector Phil Walker, of the Major Crime Investigation Team at Wiltshire Police, said: “This has been an extremely complex investigation, with nearly eight years having passed since Danielle’s sad death.
“This passage of time, which has been out of our control, has of course added further challenges and complications to the investigation, but I am pleased that a custodial sentence has now been given to Xiao.”
