It was too easy': families ask how Kenneth Law enabled so many suicides

Aimee Walton, a music and art lover from Southampton, died by suicide in 2022 after being groomed by another user on an online forum that glorified and enabled suicide. A man named Kenneth Law pleaded guilty in Canada to his role in 14 other fatal poisonings. Investigators in Ontario say Law shipped more than 1,200 packages containing toxic substances from his local post office to people in more than 40 countries, mostly in the United Kingdom and the United States. Families of victims have long said police and government officials ignored them while they sought answers. Their frustration has grown into demands for a full public inquiry into how pro-suicide forums operated and how lethal substances evaded detection, including how Law profited from the deaths of vulnerable people.

"Monday would have been Aimee Walton's 25th birthday. But in 2022, the lover of music and art from Southampton took her own life after being groomed by another user on an online forum that glorified and enabled suicide. On Friday, 3,500 miles away, the man who sold her a toxic substance pleaded guilty in a Canadian courtroom to his part in 14 other fatal poisonings."

"Investigators in the province of Ontario say Law shipped more than 1,200 packages many containing a toxic substance from his local post office to people in more than 40 countries; the vast majority went to the United Kingdom and the United States. Families whose loved ones died by suicide have for years said they were ignored by police and government officials as they searched for answers."

"Now, that frustration has calcified into a growing demand for a full public inquiry. They want to know how online pro-suicide forums where vulnerable people are actively groomed and lethal substances are brazenly sold can be allowed to operate. They want to know how the trade of those substances evaded detection for so long and how one man was able to capitalise on a loosely regulated market, profiting off death and devastation."

"The scale of Kenneth Law's crimes in the UK could make him one of the most prolific mass killers in British modern history. It's insane that no one really is talking about that. Few people in the general public have heard of him, said Aimee's sister Adele, an investigative journalist in London. On Tuesday, she met Keir Starmer and pressed him to launch a public inquiry into nearly 100 avoidable deaths."

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