Chinese ‘slapping therapy’ healer jailed over Australian diabetic boy’s death
A CONTROVERSIAL Chinese “slapping therapy” healer who vetoed a diabetic boy’s insulin treatments was sentenced to more than seven years in prison for the 6-year-old’s death. Australian District Court Judge Garry Neilson handed down a 10-year sentence today to Hong Chi Xiao, 56, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported. Xiao listened yesterday as the heartbroken parents […]
A CONTROVERSIAL Chinese “slapping therapy” healer who vetoed a diabetic boy’s insulin treatments was sentenced to more than seven years in prison for the 6-year-old’s death.
Australian District Court Judge Garry Neilson handed down a 10-year sentence today to Hong Chi Xiao, 56, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
Xiao listened yesterday as the heartbroken parents of Aidan Fenton revealed the agony they’ve endured since their son’s death.
“He was becoming my best friend,” Fenton’s dad wrote in a victim impact statement read to the court.
His mother wrote of her “immense pain as if someone stabbed me in my heart,” the Australian Associated Press reported.
Xiao, who a Sydney jury found guilty of manslaughter in October, is eligible for parole in October 2024 due to time served.
He’d been behind bars since 2017 after being extradited from London – where The Sun Online reported Xiao is currently wanted in the 2016 death of a woman, 71, who was also diabetic.
Xiao showed no remorse for his role in the death of the boy, Neilson said.
Instead, he expressed “disdain for western medicine” and even after the death continued to hold workshops “with no obvious restriction” to prevent a diabetic from attending.
The jury found Xiao advised Fenton’s parents at a weeklong workshop costing $1,800 to stop insulin injections and blood glucose tests.
When he was told the boy was vomiting something black, Xiao wrote in a group chat the alarming ailment was part of the “self-healing process.”
Soon, though, Fenton began suffering seizures and was pronounced dead at a hospital.
The child’s parents and grandmother were charged with manslaughter in 2017 but found not guilty.
Xiao has previously denied being responsible for the boy’s death, which he referred to in a YouTube video as “the Australian incident.”
He told an Australian radio audience in 2014 he’s “not a doctor” and “not a healer.”
But his website refers to his counsel as having “the wisdom of a scientist and the spirit of an explorer,” according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
MOST READ IN NEWS
“Slapping therapy” is an outgrowth of traditional Chinese medicine.
The paida lajin method Xiao advocates involves the repeated slapping of patients, either by themselves or a practitioner, and often results in dark bruises, the BBC reported.
Xiao has said the practice has the potential to cure conditions such as Alzheimer’s, autism, paralysis and cancer, according to the BBC.
He was fined $1,600 by Taiwanese authorities in April 2011 for “promoting folk remedies.”