A man admitted causing 73 deaths in England and Wales but will face no UK court after prosecutors in Canada secured a guilty plea that sees him sentenced for the full scale of his offending in a single process.
Kenneth Law, 60, pleaded guilty to 14 counts of aiding or counselling suicide at Newmarket Court in Ontario on 29 May 2026, as part of a deal that saw Canadian prosecutors withdraw 14 murder charges against him. His UK victims – potentially the largest group of any country – were included in the case only as “agreed facts”, factors that could increase his sentence but not individual charges. The National Crime Agency (NCA) has confirmed it will not seek to prosecute Law in the UK, stating the decision “guarantees all victims and families in the UK will see justice”. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and NCA said they would not seek extradition because Law should be sentenced for his full offending within a single Canadian process. The agreed statement of facts presented in the Canadian court documented 73 deaths in England and Wales, five in Scotland and one in Northern Ireland, bringing the total number of UK victims directly linked to products supplied by Law to 79.
For Adele Zeynep Walton, whose sister Aimee was found dead in a hotel room in October 2022 after ingesting a substance bought online, the outcome feels like a “slap in the face”. She joined other grieving families on a video link to watch Law face court more than 3,000 miles away. “We all feel let down,” she said. “We all feel really angry and disappointed. The scale of his impact in the UK is potentially his deadliest. It’s unarguable that he should be sentenced here as well.”
The forum and how it operates
Central to the case is an online discussion forum that, campaigners say, glorifies and enables suicide. Law is alleged to have promoted the lethal substance – sodium nitrite – to users of this forum, including Aimee Walton. Sodium nitrite is legally sold in Canada as a food additive but can be deadly if ingested. Law disguised his operation as a provider of legitimate products such as hot sauce, creating the illusion of an industrial food-prep wholesaler.
Adele Zeynep Walton described her family’s horror at discovering her sister had been interacting online with people encouraging her to end her life. “We were obviously really shocked that something like this even exists and that it’s so easy to access,” she said. “We thought, ‘Oh, this is just something that’s very hard to reach. It’s maybe on the dark web’. But since losing Aimee, I’ve realised the dark web does exist, but most of the harmful stuff is also accessible on mainstream internet.”
The forum, which remains active despite enforcement action, contains what Ofcom has described as “instructional ‘guides’ and threads detailing different methods of suicide, some of which have been present on the site for years”. Ofcom launched an investigation under the Online Safety Act – the first such investigation immediately after the Act came into force – and in May 2026 issued a Confirmation Decision imposing a £950,000 fine on the provider for failing to comply with its duties. The provider subsequently implemented a voluntary geo-block to restrict access for UK users, which Ofcom is monitoring. However, campaigners argue this is insufficient and that the forum could return or be accessed by other means. Ofcom told The Independent its investigation remains ongoing as it explores all options for using the powers available to protect people in the UK.
The Online Safety Act 2023 was designed to regulate online content and places new duties on social media companies and search services to protect users. It includes provisions to tackle suicide and self-harm content, making it a criminal offence to intentionally encourage or assist serious self-harm. In December 2025, encouraging or assisting serious self-harm was added to the list of “priority offences” under the Act, meaning tech firms must actively seek out and remove such content. A government spokesperson said: “Under the Online Safety Act, services must take action to prevent users from accessing suicide content. Where they fail to do so, they have faced robust enforcement action, such as fines of up to 10 per cent of worldwide revenue or courts blocking access.”
Despite this regulatory framework, Adele Zeynep Walton believes the system is failing. She said her sister, who was neurodivergent, was “groomed” into taking her own life. “That’s what grooming is – they isolate you from your loved ones,” she said. She believes many victims, including Aimee, were neurodivergent, which may have put them at higher risk. An inquest into Aimee’s death has not yet been held, but a pre-inquest review was scheduled for June, with the inquest itself in September. Adele Zeynep Walton hopes “online harms” will be cited as a cause or contributing factor.
A family’s fight for justice
Aimee, from Southampton, was found dead on 14 October 2022. With her was an American man who had flown to the UK to be by her side while she died. He was later charged with assisting suicide, but no further action was taken. As Adele began to piece together her sister’s online life in the months leading to her death, she realised Aimee was far from the only person whose tragic end had been linked to the forum and to Law. Speaking to other bereaved families, she began to paint a wider picture of Law’s offending and the dark network in which he operated.
She was put in touch with David Parfett, whose 22-year-old son Tom took his life in 2021 after purchasing a substance online under strikingly similar circumstances. Together they formed the group Families and Survivors to Prevent Online Suicide Harms (FSPOSH), which now includes seven families. The group have spent years campaigning for Ofcom to shut down the site and for the government to act to stop the sale of sodium nitrite to vulnerable people.
In October last year, they issued a call for a public inquiry into what they called “major state failures” in response to the forum. In a letter to Sir Keir Starmer, they wrote that the state had been “too slow to respond to the threats which, despite multiple warnings, has failed to act to save lives and prevent harm”. A report indicated that coroners raised concerns about suicide forums with three government departments – the Department of Health and Social Care, the Home Office, and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology – at least 65 times between 2019 and October 2025. Families argue these warnings were not acted upon, leading to preventable deaths.
The government rejected the plea for a public inquiry. A Home Office spokesperson insisted it is “working closely with law enforcement partners to identify and intercept harmful substances entering the UK”. The group are now taking advice on challenging the refusal in the High Court. “I genuinely feel if the public inquiry decision does not change, any more deaths, the government, the Home Office – all of these departments have blood on their hands,” Adele said. “It’s absolutely inexcusable for them to not take it seriously enough to try and stop it and use every mechanism in their power to stop it. Right now, a public inquiry is the most powerful way legally that we could look at all of the failings and learn from the mistakes and prevent it from happening anymore.”
Adele Zeynep Walton has chronicled her sister’s story and her own reflections in her book Logging Off: The Human Cost of Our Digital World. The Molly Rose Foundation, a suicide prevention charity, has also been involved in campaigning. As Law awaits sentencing, scheduled for September 2026, the group are painfully conscious that the forum that facilitated their loved ones’ deaths remains accessible, and that Law is suspected of sending at least 1,200 packages to more than 40 countries – with a CBC News investigation linking his products to at least 147 deaths worldwide. The NCA’s investigation initially identified 286 individuals in the UK who received packages, leading to 112 deaths, though the CPS and NCA later confirmed 79 UK victims died as a direct result of purchasing Law’s products. Law, who had previously denied knowingly aiding suicides, arguing he had “no control” over what customers did with the sodium nitrite, will now be sentenced in Canada. A civil lawsuit has also been filed against him by the family of Jeshennia Bedoya Lopez, an Ontario woman who committed suicide.
