Boy’s mother, father, grandmother and ‘healer’ Hong Chi Xiao have pleaded not guilty to manslaughterA diabetic six-year-old boy who died while undergoing alternative slapping and stretching therapy was unable to walk and vomited regularly in his final days, a Sydney jury has heard. In opening submissions, Harris said Xiao told participants ahead of the workshop that slapping and stretching of the body “activated the body’s self-healing power and unlocked the body’s energy channels”. “If you take insulin, that is not healing, that is called drug addiction,” Harris said Xiao had instructed. Both the mother and grandmother argue they thought Xiao was a doctor and therefore did not seek medical treatment or inject insulin. The mother wasn’t some “alternative medicine fanatic” and was looking for other treatments rather than a cure for diabetes, her lawyer told the jury.

Source: The Guardian November 07, 2018 04:41 UTC