I Sold Toxic Chemicals Online To Aid Suicides — Poison Seller

A man has pleaded guilty to 14 counts of aiding suicides in Canada after he sold toxic chemicals online.

Kenneth Law, 60, entered the guilty plea relating to Canadian victims in an Ontario court yesterday, as part of a deal with prosecutors who withdrew more serious murder charges.

Authorities said the former chef also sold about 1,200 packages of the toxic substances to recipients who he met in online suicide forums – in 40 countries, including the UK, according to the BBC.

Families of British victims have said they are angry with UK prosecutors for not charging Law, who is linked to the deaths of 79 Britons. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said the Canadian legal system will take the losses of UK families into account.

A letter from the CPS, seen by the BBC, said Law would not face charges in the UK because of legal complexities.

Specialist CPS prosecutor Andrew Hudson said including UK victims in the Canadian sentencing process was the “quickest and most effective route” to securing justice.

Hudson said a successful extradition was “far from guaranteed and would have taken years to conclude”, and there was a risk if he was extradited that any prosecution “could have been blocked under double jeopardy principles”.

He added: “A condition of our agreement with the Canadian prosecutor was that Kenneth Law’s sentence must reflect the fact that people died in England and Wales as a direct result of using products that he supplied to them.

“No victim has been left behind as part of this process.”

Law was also linked to the death of five people in Scotland and one in Northern Ireland.

The court heard Law sent 330 packages to 286 recipients in the UK.

Ontario man Ashtyn Prosser-Blake, 19, was one of Law’s victims who died by suicide in March 2023.

“He was just such a super happy, really gentle soul, always looking to stand up for the underdog, the kids that got picked on,” his mother Kim Prosser told the BBC.