A man from the US has appeared in a British court charged with the unlawful killing of a woman who attended a slapping therapy workshop to help with her diabetes.

During a short hearing at Winchester Crown Court, Hongchi Xiao pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter by gross negligence of Danielle Carr-Gomm.

The 71-year-old pensioner, from Lewes in East Sussex, died in October 2016 while she was taking part in a paida lajin workshop – therapy that sees patients being slapped or slapping themselves repeatedly.

She was reportedly found dead by a fellow workshop attendee whom she was sharing a room with at Cleeve House, a country hotel in Wiltshire.

Mrs Carr-Gomm’s family have previously said she embraced alternative and holistic medicine and therapies.

Jessica Clarke, defending, told the court: “The deceased was an avid follower and ran her own courses of the practice.”

Prosecutors allege that while delivering the workshop, the 60-year-old defendant unlawfully killed Mrs Carr-Gomm – a person “to whom he owed a duty of care”.

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They accused him of not taking reasonable steps to ensure urgent medical assistance was sought when she suffered from a medical crisis – ketoacidosis – and breached “that duty in such a way and/or to such an extent as to amount to gross negligence, thereby causing her death”.

Diabetic ketoacidosis, also known as DKA, happens when a body has a severe lack of insulin and so it cannot use sugar for energy and begins to use fat instead.

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Mrs Carr-Gomm, who was born in France and moved to the UK at the age of 21, was diagnosed with diabetes in 1999 and struggled to inject insulin due to a fear of needles.

Her son Matthew, who lives in New Zealand, said: “She was always keen to try and find alternative methods of treating and dealing with her diabetes and was very interested in alternative and holistic medicine and therapies.

“I know she was desperate to try and cure herself of this disease.”

Hongchi Xiao, of Cloudbreak, California, was charged in November after being extradited to the UK from Australia.

Judge Timothy Mousley KC adjourned the case for a four-week trial to start on 26 June with a further case management hearing to be held on 8 February.

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