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.

Kenneth Law, 60, is linked to at least 131 deaths worldwide, after using a collection of digital storefronts to target vulnerable youth. 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.

“I’m hoping that my time with the prime minister might have given him a kick up the ass to move things forward.”

In October 2025, victims’ families requested a public inquiry. They were rejected in March 2026. They have until June to appeal the decision. A planned meeting with ministers has faced numerous delays. “We’ve been ignored and dismissed,” said Walton. “Our concerns aren’t being heard.”

In early May, the media regulator, Ofcom, used its powers under the Online Safety Act to fine the online suicide forum £950,000. But the site, which the Guardian has chosen not to name, remains easily accessible.

The challenge of unravelling the nested tragedies of suicide, criminality and predation on vulnerable young people has been made harder because such cases often span jurisdictions and continents.

Beginning in 2020, the former aerospace engineer began selling a substance that can be fatal in large concentrated quantities. To evade detection, Law offered other products such as hot sauces on his sites to give the illusion he was an industrial food preparation wholesaler. But he also sold suicide paraphernalia and gave detailed instructions about how to use the items.

Many of his customers were in the UK, including Tom Parfett, an “absolutely lovely man who had the ability to see the good in anyone,” according to his father, David.

“Tom enjoyed a good conversation, enjoyed a good joke and was passionate about so many things,” said David Parfett. “He had his problems, but people who knew him would have found him easy to get on with.”

Tom died in October 2021 in Surrey at the age of 22. Driven by a desire to understand what had happened, Parfett retraced the digital trail that had led to his son’s death.

“In less than three months, I had got myself onto a website, built enough credibility that someone told me about this poison. I was given instructions about how to kill myself,” said Parfett. “I actually got a package, from Law, of the same poison as my son had used. It was too easy.”

Parfett contacted an editor at the Times, who also obtained the poison and confronted Law, who was arrested soon after by Canadian police.

In interviews, Law suggested he had sold the products on humanitarian grounds, citing his own mother, who had died after immense and prolonged suffering before physician-assisted death was widespread. But he also told the Globe and Mail: “I need a source of income. I hope you can understand that. I need to feed myself.”

In Canada, criminal code punishes anyone who “counsels or abets” a person to die by suicide with a sentence of up to 14 years in prison. While the country’s legal system eschews the lengthy, often symbolic sentences handed down by judges in the US, experts believe the scope of Law’s actions suggest he will receive a llong prison term. A deal between Canadian prosecutors and the British national crime agency means Law’s role in the deaths of nearly 100 people in the UK will also be considered by the judge in his sentencing.

While Law will spend years in jail, campaigners point out that the substance used in the deaths was used before he began selling it online. Beginning in 2019, coroners began linking deaths to the substance. Over the years, they issued more than three dozen “prevention of future deaths” reports. Government agencies were warned about what campaigners say is a predictable but entirely preventable harm that disproportionately affects young people.

Parfett says he still gets phone calls from families in Canada and the UK who have lost loved ones to the same substance that killed his son. “It’s still happening. Law is in jail, but it’s still happening. So when I think about justice, it’s not getting more calls from people who have lost someone.”

Walton is also an advocate for bereaved families and has published a book that exposes how social media and technology companies exploit human vulnerability. Her activism has helped memorialise her sister: the talented, creative, funny, and vulnerable woman who struggled with her mental health.

Walton said that families like hers were grappling with a “societal stigma” around people who die by suicide. “They’re just dismissed. From coroners to police departments, there’s a feeling that our loved ones’ lives are not taken as seriously,” she said.

Walton said the saga reflected a need to rethink society’s and legislators’ “whack-a-mole approach” to pursuing bad actors. “We put one sinister person away, but the broader problem is the fact that there is little accountability for individuals like Law on such a broad societal scale,” she said.

Still, she said the guilty plea was a “reaffirming” moment. “This trial was a moment not to let our government off the hook – but to show how desperately we need a public inquiry. The guilty plea doesn’t lessen the need for justice, it makes it more vital.”

Walton said little had been done to investigate the external factors that contributed to the deaths, especially in a largely unregulated and unchecked online world. Aimee was involuntarily detained for psychiatric assessment, yet she had her devices with her and was able to access the suicide forum.

“Mental health providers don’t seem to be aware of this and don’t appear to be trained on recognising red flags when it comes to vulnerable people in hospital.”

Many victims, including Aimee, were also neurodivergent and had conditions that put people at higher risk of dying by suicide. Walton also suggested paramedics be better educated about the availability of the substance, how to reverse its symptoms and how to treat it effectively.

In Canada, the federal health agency has not taken steps to restrict access to the substance. Instead, Health Canada says it plans to educate doctors about the possibility for misuse. It also wants to see hospitals stock up on drugs which can reverse the toxic effects.

Parfett said that, while there was a need for online forums that gave a sense of community for people who were struggling, lawmakers had been slow to adapt to the mounting threats.

“To the credit of investigators, much of this is new – or it was when Tom died. They were doing what they’re trained to do,” he said. “But at a certain point, how many coroners reports are needed to show something needs to be done?”

The interim years since his son’s death have been a series of hard-won lessons in how to approach mental health, and the need for openness in speaking about the challenges people face.

“If Tom was 20 years older, growing up pre-internet, I’m pretty sure he’d be here today. He would have found the right support, a way through. There wouldn’t have been a community of people actively encouraging him and selling him a poison to kill himself,” said Parfett. “Through all my work, I’m thinking about my three-year-old grandson and trying to make sure, when he’s Tom’s age, lives in a safer online world.”