Finally! At long last the Australian courts came to a verdict and found the notorious slapping therapist guilty of manslaughter. Early last week another warrant for his arrest was issued in the UK where another person died at his hands. Now the main question is; what type of sentence will he receive? Keep in mind that the parents of the victim were cleared of any wrongdoing – which in my view is…. yeah, what can one say – unbelievable. So, will it this time be a just sentence, one that sends a strong message to the growing army of quacks out there, or will it only be a weak slap on the wrist? Hopefully by coming Friday we will know. At least it is a step in the right direction, and now the authorities should seriously start to look at where all this misleading information is coming from, especially those publicly funded universities that continue to promote these ineffective dangerous rubbish – but I’m not holding my breath.

Here is the full article regarding this important verdict as it appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald and copied below.

Start of article:

“A Chinese medicine practitioner who claimed slapping and stretching could cure diabetes has been found guilty of manslaughter after a six-year-old boy died following a “slapping healing” workshop four years ago.

The boy, who cannot be named, had type 1 diabetes and was given his final insulin injection on April 22, 2015, at the beginning of a week-long workshop at Hurstville in Sydney’s south. He died five days later, after he began to vomit a black-coloured substance and became so weak he was pushed around in a pram. On the day of his death, when he could not talk or open his eyes, participants at the workshop slapped his arms to wake him up.

The boy was also slapped on the arms that evening, after he had a seizure and laid on a hotel bed unconscious and not breathing. He died from diabetic ketoacidosis, a build-up of acid in the body after no insulin is administered.

Hong Chi Xiao, 56, was charged with manslaughter over the boy’s death, with the Crown arguing Xiao owed the boy a duty of care which he breached through gross negligence. On Friday, a jury found him guilty following a trial in the NSW District Court.

Xiao initially faced trial last year, but those proceedings were aborted after he sacked his legal team. The boy’s mother, father and maternal grandmother were also accused of manslaughter in a trial last year; all three were found not guilty.

Xiao’s first trial heard he taught “paida lajin” workshops, a type of slapping and stretching, as a form of Chinese alternative medicine.

The court was told he claimed in a seminar the day before the Sydney workshop that the paida lajin method “unlocked the body’s self-healing power”, which could cure diseases including type 1 and type 2 diabetes, cancer and Parkinson’s disease.

“He told the audience that in respect of insulin, it could be generated by slapping and stretching,” Crown prosecutor Sharon Harris said last year. “There was no alternative to insulin. It was insulin keeping [the boy] alive.”

The boy’s parents enrolled him in Xiao’s workshop with the hope of “curing” his diabetes, because he was tired of being injected with insulin four times a day. As part of the workshop he was made to fast for three days, before he was finally allowed to eat again on the day he died. The first trial heard Xiao told the boy’s mother that she should not give him any more insulin, because “medicine is poison, Western medicine cannot cure you”.

As the boy’s health deteriorated and he started vomiting, Xiao told the boy’s mother that toxins were being released from his body and it was a positive sign, not a negative one, the court was told.

Xiao denied making such comments. He will return to court on Friday for a sentencing date to be set.

Earlier this month a court in England issued a warrant for Xiao’s arrest over the alleged gross negligence manslaughter of a woman who attended one of his workshops in 2016. The woman’s son told British media the 71-year-old also had diabetes and attended a week-long workshop in England’s south-west in an attempt to “cure” the condition.

British police said they will “work with the relevant agencies” to have Xiao stand trial over the woman’s death.”

End of article

I am no lawyer so I don’t have a clue about what to expect when it comes to sentencing. According to this website the average aggregate sentence for manslaughter was seven years, with an average minimum of 4.5 years. This info is a bit dated (from 2012) but I am hopeful that they will set an example and sentence him to the absolute maximum allowable under law.