Sonny Hang Chin (65) is on trial before the Dunedin District Court on allegations of groping a total of eight women over 13 years.
He has pleaded not guilty to 13 counts of indecent assault.
His counsel, Anne Stevens KC, told the jurors at the outset that Chin’s actions were part of his legitimate treatment of patients.
"We’re all familiar with mainstream Western medicine ... To understand the defence in this case is to understand the application of traditional Chinese medicine," she said.
The court heard yesterday a police inquiry was sparked in 2016 after a woman made disclosures of inappropriate behaviour by the “qigong master”.
Detective Wayne O’Connell said police checked their internal database and found there had been similar allegations several years earlier from another of Chin’s clients.
The defendant agreed to be interviewed, a recording of which was played for jurors yesterday.
Chin accepted some of his work may not have been “best practice” but said he was trying to improve his methods.
He denied there was any lewd motivation in his touching.
“I’m not there to be a sexual pervert; I’m not like that in my work. My work is strictly professional. Sometimes people don’t understand the difference between a physical body and an energy body,” he said.
“To the people I’ve offended, I’m sorry. If I can give a written apology or anything, I would.”
Chin explained that if he had touched anyone’s breasts it was in the context of his healing work, targeting the “16 channels that meet at the side of the breast”.
He said he would also touch the sternum “if the heart energy is open”.
Chin told Det O’Connell he was developing techniques which involved not touching at all, and had also developed a plastic device for covering women’s breasts while he treated them.
The defendant was given a written warning by police but three more women came forward over alleged molestations in 2019.
Another complainant who visited Chin in 2006 over her chronic neck and back pain told the court yesterday that her first appointment was uneventful.
At the second, however, she said the man fondled her.
“I was sitting there and at one point his hand slid inside my bra and he just kept telling me I didn’t love myself because my breasts were cold,” the woman said.
“I just froze and I had tears going down my cheeks ... begging him to work on my neck.”
The complainant told the court she remained devastated that she paid Chin for the “privilege of him getting his jollies”.
She described having a mental breakdown in the ensuing years and turning to alcohol to numb the anger she felt over the incident.
Crown prosecutor Pip Norman, in her opening address, told the jury all the complainants would give evidence of Chin touching their breasts and one would say he bit her nipple.
Another would allege the defendant quizzed her about being sexually repressed, then slapped her genitalia and said "wake up".
The trial continues.
