Slapping therapist jailed over diabetic woman’s death loses appeal
It happened in 2016
Last updated 24th Jul 2026
An alternative healer, who was jailed over the death of a 71 year-old diabetic woman who stopped taking her insulin at his slapping therapy workshop, has lost an appeal against his conviction.
Danielle Carr-Gomm died in October 2016 while taking part in the Paida Lajin therapy event in Wiltshire, which involved people being slapped or slapping themselves repeatedly.
Hongchi Xiao, of Cloudbreak, California, was convicted in July 2024 of manslaughter by gross negligence and later sentenced to 10 years in jail.
He sought to challenge his conviction at the Court of Appeal but it was dismissed by judges on Friday.
Lawyers for Xiao, now in his 60s, argued that a waiver – which Ms Carr-Gomm and the other participants signed to say the therapist is not liable for any injuries or illnesses arising from the activities – had been inappropriately summed up to the jury by Mr Justice Bright at trial.
They also said the judge misdirected the jury about evidence from another of the participants.
But Lord Justice Dingemans, sitting with Mr Justice Murray and Judge Andrew Lees, said on Friday that the previous judge “was entitled to set out the evidence as he understood it”.
In a judgment, he also 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 said Mr Justice Bright did misdirect the jury about the waiver, but only on it being potentially “decisive” if it were a civil trial instead of a criminal one.
However, Lord Justice Dingemans said that “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”.
He added: “For the detailed reasons set out above we dismiss the appeal against conviction.”
The trial, at Winchester Crown Court, heard that Mrs Carr-Gomm, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 1999, was “howling in pain” and “frothing at the mouth” as she became seriously ill before she died on the fourth day of the workshop.
Jurors were told she had sought alternatives to her insulin medication because of her vegetarianism and fear of needles.
The court heard that she had provided a testimonial for Xiao, describing him as a “messenger sent by God” who was “starting a revolution to put the power back in the hands of the people to cure themselves and to change the whole system of health care”.
She joined the Paida Lajin workshop, which means “slap and stretch”, in October 2016, having attended another in Bulgaria a few months earlier where she also stopped her insulin medication and became seriously ill before recovering.
The court heard that Xiao said “well done” to Mrs Carr-Gomm after she told the participants in Wiltshire that she had stopped taking her insulin at the week-long retreat, and she again became seriously ill.
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.
Xiao was extradited for the trial from Australia, where he had previously been prosecuted after a six-year-old boy died when his parents withdrew his insulin medication after attending Xiao’s workshop in Sydney.
Lord Justice Dingemans said that he was deported to the US on June 30, adding: “It seems that Mr Xiao is not in custody in the USA.”