A woman faces a potential jail sentence after being found guilty of the manslaughter of a woman who died after undergoing a botched breast augmentation procedure in Sydney.
A jury at the New South Wales district court found Jie Shao guilty on Thursday morning of the manslaughter of 35-year-old Jean Huang, who died in September 2017.
Shao’s trial – which began in February – heard evidence about what she did and did not do before and after Huang lost consciousness at the Medi Beauty Clinic Huang operated at Chippendale, in inner-city Sydney.
Huang died in hospital after the procedure, which was not approved in Australia at the time and involved hyaluronic acid being injected into her breasts as filler.
Shao’s lawyers acknowledged Huang was mistakenly given too much of the local anaesthetic lidocaine but argued the jury would not be satisfied her actions were so dangerous or fell so far below reasonable standards of care that they should warrant criminal punishment.
They sought to convince jurors key prosecution witnesses had a financial motive to lie and had used Shao as a convenient patsy.
Shao’s defence argued she had performed the procedure when Huang asked her to do it. The jury heard Shao had been in Sydney for 24 hours before performing the procedure and had held herself out as a doctor in messages exchanged with Huang.
Shao was not registered as a medical practitioner in Australia or China, where she studied and interned at hospitals.
A teary-eyed Shao entered the dock as her bail was revoked after the jury of five women and seven men handed down the guilty verdict.
A term of full-time imprisonment was “realistically inevitable”, judge Timothy Gartelmann said.
A sentencing hearing will be held in May.
