Healer bit her nipple, woman says

Sonny Hang Chin at an earlier trial. PHOTO: ODT FILES
Sonny Hang Chin at an earlier trial. PHOTO: ODT FILES
A woman has told a jury a Dunedin healer bit her nipple during a massage.

She is one of eight complainants giving evidence against 65-year-old Sonny Hang Chin at his Dunedin District Court trial, which began this week.

Chin, who calls himself a "qigong master", has denied 13 counts of indecent assault.

Yesterday, the court heard from a woman who, like many others, suffered back pain and had been referred to the defendant by a friend.

She said Chin had an offsider present at their first session but was alone at the second and third, when the alleged sexual assaults took place.

He allegedly commented on the woman’s breasts then told her she had been sexually abused by a family member during her childhood.

She denied that was the case.

"He started talking to me about my personality and that I picked the wrong men. Before I knew it I was bawling my eyes out," the complainant told police.

"He said to me I sexually closed myself off, then he smacked the top of my vagina and said ‘wake up’."

The woman said she was upset but returned for more treatment within weeks.

Chin allegedly had her lying on her back and was working on her sternum towards the end of the visit.

"When he was doing that he pulled my bra down and bit my nipple. I just lay there thinking ‘what the hell was that?’," the complainant said.

"It wasn’t hard but it was awful."

The woman said she was "gobsmacked", so much so that she did not immediately protest.

Another complainant told the court yesterday she had returned to the country for several weeks in 2011 when she booked an appointment with Chin.

Her first session, which she attended with her ex-partner, was unremarkable, she said.

At the second, just days later, the woman said Chin suddenly asked her: "How are you feeling sexually?"

She told him she felt "worthless, useless", before he allegedly grabbed her pubic region.

"He got a good handful, grabbed and shook me forcefully," the complainant said.

Chin allegedly said "what’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with you?" as he did it, then seconds later put his hands on her breasts and shook them, replying to himself, "there’s nothing wrong with you; there’s nothing wrong with you".

"He was almost yelling; he was very loud," the woman said.

Chin’s counsel, Anne Stevens KC, suggested the healer had informed the woman he planned to clear the "stagnant energy" in her lower body and that the way he had touched her was legitimate massage.

The witness disagreed.

A third woman told the jury yesterday that she too was instructed to lie on her back during a session with Chin.

She described the defendant lifting up her T-shirt and flipping her bra to expose her breasts.

He allegedly groped them for up to 10 minutes, to the point where the complainant said it became painful.

Mrs Stevens cross-examined her, asking whether Chin had actually found a lump in her breast and was showing her how to knead it out.

"I don’t believe that happened," the witness said.

The woman who accused Chin of biting her nipple will be cross-examined tomorrow.

rob.kidd@odt.co.nz

 


 

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