A doctor has been convicted of murdering a 71-year-old woman after she stopped taking her insulin in the hope that his slap therapy would “cure me forever”.
Xiao Hongchi, 66, has been described as “Master Xiao” in his workshop program which includes paida lajin therapy, in which patients are slapped, or slapped, repeatedly.
Following a trial at Winchester Crown Court, a 61-year-old man was convicted in July of the manslaughter of Danielle Carr-Gomm, 78, who died after taking part in an incident at Cleeve House in Seend, Wiltshire, in October. 2016.
He was transferred to another case from Australia, where he had previously been charged with the death of a six-year-old boy who also died after his parents withdrew his insulin after attending a prosecutor’s meeting in Sydney.
On Friday, Xiao, from Cloudbreak, California, in the US, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in the same court.
Danielle Carr-Gomm, 78, was attending an event to promote Paida Lajin’s treatment in Wiltshire in 2016 when she died (PA Media)
The inquest heard that Xiao said “well done” to Mrs Carr-Gomm, of Lewes, East Sussex, after she told the group she had stopped taking her insulin for a weekend break. Prosecutors said Xiao failed to get him medical attention as he was seriously ill.
A cook at the retreat, Teresa Hayes, told jurors she heard “slaps, cries, screams and a painful sound like a thud” when she passed Mrs Carr-Gomm’s room in the hours before she died on October 20. “The sound of the slap sounded like the slaps that Paida made and those who entered all this time,” she said.
What is slapping therapy?
Paida lajin is described as a self-healing philosophy that involves the patient being slapped or slapped repeatedly believing that it will release toxins from the blood.
Xiao Hongchi was extradited from Australia, where he was previously charged with the death of a six-year-old boy (PA Media)
This treatment is derived from traditional Chinese medicine, although critics say it has no scientific basis. Paida involves patting (“pai” in Chinese) and stroking (“da”) one’s skin, while lajin involves taking various positions to stretch the muscles.
A video of one of Xiao’s sessions, recorded in Malaysia, shows people taking part in the treatment, violently hitting different parts of their body, especially the joints and head, until their skin turns red or starts to look like scars.
Most of the participants slap themselves with enough force that the sound is easily heard on the clip’s audio. Others can be seen doing various lines while lying on the table or on the floor.
Others, however, are taken to the point where Xiao tells the room to slap the others on the show.
Xiao is a US national of Chinese origin who runs the California-based Pailala Institute and has led conferences around the world.
Xiao is a US national of Chinese origin who runs the California-based Pailala Institute and has led conferences around the world (Hongchi Xiao/Facebook)
The Pailala Institute is a non-profit organization run by a group of unpaid volunteers to promote and support the self-healing of Paida Lajin, led by Xiao, according to its website.
“Our mission is to transform our world into a healthy place, by making each of us awaken our self-healing power, we were born, to heal ourselves, to reduce the cost of treatment and its associated consequences,” it adds.
Xiao has also written books on the technique, which include graphic illustrations that show people how to treat. His first book, The World of Medicine: The Paida Lajin Self-Healing Methodreleased in 2009, it made Xiao famous and his workshops became popular in China across Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. He has also done clinics in India, US, Germany.
However, Xiao was heavily criticized from experts who rejected his claim that paida lajin could treat a variety of conditions including old age, body pain, Alzheimer’s, stroke, paralysis, kidney failure and even cancer and autism.
Paida and lajin are conceptually linked in traditional Chinese medicine known as “sha”, which is the belief that the blood can be “poisoned” by poison and therefore needs to be expelled from the body.
Medical advocates believe that paida and lajin can improve blood circulation and thus produce “sha”. According to Mr. Xiao’s theory, when “sha” is seen this is a sign of “mysterious diseases”.
Hongchi Xiao appearing at Winchester Crown Court (PA Wire)
Critics, however, say that the slap therapy causes nothing more than broken blood vessels and bruised skin.
Mr. Xiao has repeatedly referred to the “slap” in interviews and videos posted on the internet.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, in a 2014 radio interview with Australian broadcaster ABC he insisted he was not a “master”. “I’m not a doctor, I’m not a magician, I only teach you the way. You learn and do it yourself,” he said.
The court heard that, before the day she died, some participants interpreted Ms Carr-Gomm’s condition as a “recovery problem” – a term used by the defendant as the Paida Lajin method is starting to work.
Duncan Atkinson KC, prosecuting, told the jury that Xiao wrote a book about Paida Lajin in which he claimed that “doctors are brainwashed by drug manufacturers to act as salesmen for their drugs”.
In the book My Health, I Manage! E-Dao Paida And Lajin Self-Healing states that the practice should be “safer and more reliable than existing healing methods … without the risk of toxicity or side effects” and that “it should work on almost all diseases”.