As the sentencing hearing for Canadian convicted poison seller Kenneth Law entered its second day, grieving family members of multiple British victims delivered raw, emotional impact statements, laying bare the irreversible damage Law’s illegal business has inflicted on households across the world.
Law, a 50-something former chef, has pled guilty to 14 counts of aiding suicide in Canada for his scheme: he connected with vulnerable people in online suicide forums, then shipped roughly 1,200 packages of lethal toxic substances to customers in 40 countries. Roughly 25% of those packages were sent to the United Kingdom, where British investigators have confirmed 79 people died after consuming poisons purchased from Law. Under a plea deal reached with Canadian prosecutors, Law will never face criminal charges in the UK for any of these deaths, a ruling that has done little to ease the suffering of bereaved families, who were given the opportunity to share their stories during the four-day Ontario sentencing hearing this week.
Tanya Whitaker, mother of 19-year-old Samuel Whitaker, a University of Warwick student who died after taking Law’s poison, opened her video statement breaking down in tears. “He barely had a chance,” she told the Canadian court. Samuel, Whitaker explained, was her husband Paul’s only biological son, and his death has left the entire family shattered. “The enormity of losing a child is catastrophic,” she said. “It has broken me completely and utterly. It has broken us as a family and me as a mother. Our son died alone at university 100 miles away from his family. We will never be able to forgive ourselves for this happening. He is a shell of himself today. Broken and devastated beyond repair.”
Debbie Cornish, mother of Danielle Cornish, another British victim who died years ago, echoed that agony in a written statement that only referred to Law by his initials KL. “Words on paper can’t even begin to describe the painful loss of our amazing daughter,” she wrote. “Nothing will be the same ever again as we are part of a surreal nightmare. Nearly four years on, we are still fighting to keep our family together… not to mention the constant thoughts of how she may have died. KL has changed the life of many many families all across the world as well as ours. We are living a constant nightmare.”
Other families shared equally devastating accounts of their losses. Faith George, mother of Faith Ike-Elechi, recalled finding her daughter — nicknamed Chimma — unresponsive on the floor after she ingested the poison, saying her daughter’s final words echo in her mind every single day. Maurice Dunham, father of Michael Dunham, opened up about the permanent guilt he carries: the last time he saw his son alive, the pair argued during a family holiday in Croatia, before Michael cut the trip short and returned home. When Dunham arrived back days later, he found Michael dead. “The feeling I had was like an electric shock going through me,” he wrote. “I blamed myself for not stopping Michael from leaving the hotel room. I planned to take my own life. I didn’t care if I lived or died.”
Adele Zeynep Walton, sister of 20-something Southampton native Aimee Louise Elif Walton, told the court her sister died in a hotel room in an unfamiliar city, accompanied only by a stranger she had met in an online suicide forum who had flown from the U.S. to stay with her in the 11 days leading up to her death. “She died in a strange place, in a strange city, in the company of a stranger,” Adele said. “You only need to listen to the recording of the emergency call to know how much she suffered during the last moments of her life.”
Multiple other parents shared their trauma, with Maureen Cooper, mother of victim Gary Cooper, calling the pain of losing her son “unbearable”, and the mother of Yeanu Mistry describing news of her son’s death as “the news every parent fears”.
The hearing also heard from a rare British survivor of Law’s poisons: Elisabeth Belien, who was saved by a rapid dose of antidote after consuming the toxin she bought. Even for those who survived, the damage runs deep. “I feel guilty for surviving. Although I survived, it has also impacted my loved ones,” Belien told the court. “I feel like my vulnerability was exploited. I still feel a lot of shame about what happened.”
Law was first arrested in May 2023, after a multi-national, multi-agency investigation that included law enforcement from at least 12 countries including the UK, the U.S. and Italy. The sentencing hearing is ongoing, with a final sentencing decision expected by the end of the four-day proceeding.