Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service says it is aware of the Ontario court proceedings involving Kenneth Law but won’t say whether he will face charges in the U.K.
British police have linked the sale of Mr. Law’s products to 112 deaths in the U.K. However, no charges have been filed, and the CPS declined to comment on Mr. Law’s guilty plea Monday to assisting in the suicides of 14 Canadians.
The decision by provincial Crown prosecutors to drop the 14 murder charges against him in Ontario and agree to a plea bargain to a lesser offence could have ramifications in Britain, said the families of some of his alleged U.K. victims.
“What happens in Canada is extremely important because it’s going to set a precedent in terms of how countries around the world respond to this kind of crime,” said Oz Walton, whose 21-year-old daughter, Aimee, died in 2022 from suicide after taking a substance she bought from Mr. Law online.
She and other families said they have received no information about whether British authorities will charge Mr. Law and seek his extradition. “We’re all just so frustrated and angry about it,” said Louise Nunn, whose 25-year-old daughter, Immy, died in 2023 after taking a substance she bought from Mr. Law.
Ontario court to hold ‘resolution hearing’ in Kenneth Law case late May
Last December, a Supreme Court of Canada ruling declined to clarify when murder charges can be laid against people who provoke apparent suicides. A recent case in Wales involving similar circumstances was also not treated as murder but as assisting suicide.
In the Welsh case, Miles Cross sold a toxic substances through an online forum to four people, two of whom died by suicide. He was sentenced to 14 years in jail last January for “assisting and encouraging the suicide of others.”
The British investigation of Mr. Law has also coincided with an emotional debate in the U.K. over assisted dying. Under the Suicide Act, it is a criminal offence in Britain to “encourage or assist the suicide, or attempted suicide, of another person.”
Last year the House of Commons approved a private member’s bill that would make it legal for terminally ill adults in England and Wales to seek help to end their lives if they are expected to die within six months. Each request would need to be assessed by two doctors and a panel composed of a social worker, a senior lawyer and a psychiatrist. All lethal drugs would have to be self-administered.
The bill has been held up in the House of Lords for months and is unlikely to clear all the parliamentary hurdles before May, when the current session ends, which means it won’t be adopted into law. The government could reintroduce it in the next session, but the debate has proved highly divisive.
Those in favour of the bill say it’s limited to terminally ill adults with mental capacity who are expected to die within months. It would not, they argue, permit what Mr. Law is accused of doing.
Critics say the bill doesn’t contain enough safeguards to guard against coercion or protect vulnerable people. In March, Scotland’s Parliament voted down a similar bill, largely over concerns about people being coerced into an assisted death.
Families devastated after collapse of murder charges against Kenneth Law
Ms. Walton, who is a social worker, said what Mr. Law is alleged to have done is not the same as assisted dying, which she supports. “To my mind, assisted dying is when someone has an enduring, progressive illness,” she said. “And they have the ability to make their mind up about that decision.”
By contrast, she said, her daughter had been struggling with mental health issues. “When she was at her worst, she was thinking about ending her life. And then some days she wasn’t. But if you have people constantly telling you, ‘Do it. Do it. Do it,’ you are more vulnerable.”
David Parfett, whose 22-year-old son, Tom, died in 2021 by suicide after taking a substance sold to him by Mr. Law, said the issues should be kept separate.
“Assisted dying is effectively medically governed early death,” he said. “What we have here is, unfortunately, a large community of people that promote medically ungoverned suicide.”
He has urged MPs to push for tighter laws surrounding suicide forums and to ensure that “we don’t get a situation where it’s almost seen as societally acceptable that someone takes a decision to end their own life.”