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The Daily T

7 Jun 2026 · 47m · 14 chapters

Episode artwork

'My daughter was killed by online poison seller Kenneth Law'

In short

A Daily Telegraph/Daily Tea special about British families whose daughters died after buying “suicide drugs” online from Kenneth Law, allegedly marketed through suicide forums and related networks. The episode argues the products were easy to access on the open web and that mental-health and policing responses failed to prevent deaths.

Guests (backgrounds)

  1. Louise Nunn, mother of Imogen “Immy” Nunn (deaf TikTok influencer, 25). She describes years of mental-health crises, self-harm, and inadequate support for British Sign Language.
  2. Adele Walton, sister of Amy Walton (21). Amy was neurodivergent (anxiety, depression, OCD), bullied, and sought community online; she died in a hotel room after an apparent assisted-suicide scenario.

Key claims

  • Kenneth Law profited by posing as a trusted forum member and selling lethal substances to vulnerable users.
  • Suicide forums were not dark-web sites; they were accessible via ordinary searches.
  • Police/ambulance actions and mental-health safeguarding were too slow or insufficient, including communication barriers for deaf people.
  • Tech platforms and Ofcom enforcement are criticized as inadequate.

Notable examples

  • Immy Nunn died on New Year’s Day 2023 in Brighton after ordering poison online; her mother says police learned of the purchase only months later.
  • Amy Walton died in October 2022 in a Berkshire hotel room with an unknown US man present for 11 days; Adele says he was released without charge and that evidence came piecemeal from journalists.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes.

Chapters

1:15

The Impact of Online Suicide Forums

Discussion of the disturbing trend of suicide forums and their connection to online poison sales.

“One 29-year-old woman took her own life in Leeds.”
3:10

Immy Nunn's Story

Introduction to Immy Nunn, her struggles with mental health, and her tragic death.

“But the families of Kenneth Law's British victims are reeling from the news that UK prosecutors would not charge Law over the deaths of 79 Britons, which authorities say are now linked to the products he supplied.”
5:04

Louise Nunn's Memories of Immy

Louise Nunn shares heartfelt memories of her daughter and her struggles with mental health.

“Let's just begin by you telling me what Imi was like.”
8:17

The Day of Immy's Death

Louise recounts the events leading up to discovering her daughter's disappearance and tragic fate.

“as she's in and out of different institutions.”
14:00

The Tragic Discovery of Loss

A parent's heart-wrenching journey upon discovering their child's fate.

“And when he got there, he said, I've got there, the police, there's police everywhere, Lou.”
18:10

The Painful Truth About Suicide Forums

Exploring the shocking reality of online suicide forums and their impact.

“Let's deal with the suicide forums, first of all.”
21:12

The Role of Kenneth Law in the Tragedy

Discussing the involvement of Kenneth Law in the sale of poison online.

“They say that they went because they'd had a report that Emmy was struggling with her mental health.”
23:52

The Fight for Awareness and Change

A mother's plea for awareness and action against online suicide resources.

“You spoke to other families that are in that same position.”
26:58

Confronting the Online Dangers

Delving into the dark side of online platforms and the need for intervention.

“that platform some of these suicide forms?”
28:00

Discussing Online Suicide Forums

Learn about the dangers of online forums that facilitate suicidal ideation.

“What have you discovered about how these forums operate?”
Show all 14 chapters
35:06

Adele Walton's Story of Loss

Hear Adele share her daughter's tragic story and the implications of mental health.

“Amy Walton from Southampton died aged 21 in October 2022 after ingesting a substance which her family now understand was supplied by Kenneth Law.”
42:00

The Impact of Online Forums on Suicide

Explore the dangers of online forums that discuss suicide and their impact on vulnerable individuals.

“Amy never used Discord before, I think, her partaking on this website and this forum that promotes suicide.”
46:05

The Role of Technology in Suicide Promotion

Discuss how tech giants contribute to the proliferation of harmful content related to suicide.

“We still have not received them three years on after she's passed.”
48:13

Lobbying for Change: Advocating for Victims

Learn about the efforts to lobby the British government for stricter controls on harmful online content.

“Are you lobbying the British government on this?”
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Transcript

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0:02The Telegraph.

0:30No bills in sight. What a life. Do right by yourself and your business and search X-E-R-O for your free trial. Conditions apply. When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there is no room for slowdowns. With Granger's vast selection of high-quality motors, sensors, belts, and hard-to-find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place, so nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRANGER, click granger.com, or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done.

1:14A warning at the beginning of this podcast, it does contain mentions of suicide. One 29-year-old woman took her own life in Leeds. One 21-year-old was found dead in a hotel room in Berkshire. Another 25-year-old social media influencer killed herself on New Year's Day. All three are linked by one new and very disturbing online trend, suicide forums. And behind each suicide is one man who profited from their deaths. Today I speak to the British families who lost their loved ones to the suicide drugs you can simply buy online. Welcome to this Daily Tea special with me, Camilla Tominy. Thank you.

2:26to customers in over 40 countries around the world, a quarter of which were sent to the UK. Investigators say Law's business was also closely tied to a network of pro-suicide forums, online communities where people discuss ending their lives and exchange information about suicide methods. According to court documents, Law posed as a trusted member of those forums and used them to market lethal substances to vulnerable users around the world. In May, Ofcom fined its operator£950 ,000 for hosting illegal content that encouraged an assisted suicide in the first major enforcement action of its kind under the UK's Online Safety Act.

3:10But the families of Kenneth Law's British victims are reeling from the news that UK prosecutors would not charge Law over the deaths of 79 Britons, which authorities say are now linked to the products he supplied. One of his victims was a young woman called Immy Nunn. Let's talk about mental health. Being deaf was really hard to assess the right support of BSL. It's my first language. Not all mental health professionals know British sign language. Little did I know that I could assess interpreters. But probably what I had to demand, demand for interpreters at every appointment. With that interpreter, there was lots of communication breakdown with professionals.

3:59This affected my mental health even more. Deaf people, you are entitled to have interpreters at every appointment. If I didn't open that, I would have made the problem 100 times worse. That's a clip of Imogen Nunn, a deaf social media influencer who shared her life on TikTok to over 700 ,000 followers. Immy was just 25 when she died in Brighton on New Year's Day in 2023. She ingested a poison she purchased online just two days after being assessed as high risk of suicide. What's so alarming is how easily people could find his products. These weren't on the dark web. They were just a few Google searches away.

4:43I travelled to Bognor Regis to speak to Louise Nunn, Immy's mum, about the moment she found out her daughter had died. and why she feels Imi was let down by the mental health services that were meant to protect her. Mrs Nunn, or Louise, if you're happy with me calling you that, you lost your daughter, Imi, in 2023. Let's just begin by you telling me what Imi was like. Oh, I don't know where to start. She was just absolutely amazing. Like, yeah, she was lovely, lovely girl. She was literally one in a million, was Imi. She, yeah, there was probably never meet anyone like her again. Everything about her was just kind and gentle and sweet.

5:31And like, yeah, if you met her, you couldn't not love her. She just didn't have a bad bone in her body. And she had quite a troubled childhood, really. From her teens, she was born deaf. Yeah. She struggled with that a lot. She struggled with her mental health. And yet in a sign of the kind of girl she was, she tried to help others, didn't she, online? She was an influencer. She had hundreds of thousands of followers talking both about being deaf and her mental health issues. Tell us a bit about how she suffered from mental health problems and the support that she did and didn't get. Well, she suddenly started struggling at about 13.

6:13and that's when we realised something was going on but she wouldn't really talk about it a lot but obviously we decided we need to get her some help and then that just continued for years. You know, that first point of trying to get her help took about six weeks which, you know, nowadays is a very short space of time to get into CAMS. But we just couldn't understand what was going on with her You know, she'd been such a happy, you know, being deaf had never been an issue for her. You know, she was happy. She had lots of friends. But all of a sudden, it was just like a different girl. We realised she was self-harming.

6:59She was checked for psychosis to see if she had that. They'd done lots of different therapies. and then about 14, 15, she took her first overdose. From that point, she's in and out of different institutions. She's being supported by various different teams, both mental health and also teams to support her because she was deaf. Throughout that period, there have been many attempts, would you say, to take her own life? She was, in inverted commas, suicidal for quite a long period, Louise. She was suicidal for quite a long period, yeah. She would get a lot better and you'd think she was doing really well.

7:48But I think whatever had made her feel that way in the first place was still inside and she just wouldn't talk to anyone about what it was, what had triggered all of this with her mental health. You know, we just didn't know what happened, you know, why? Why was she so sad and why didn't she want to be alive anymore? And you and your husband, Ray, are in constant support of her as she's in and out of different institutions. She ends up living on her own in Brighton, about an hour's drive from here and you are having to piece things together afterwards as to what happened in the run-up to her taking her own life but if it isn't too difficult can you just describe what happened on that fateful day in January 2023 how did you find out?

8:46I got a phone call in the middle, well, very early in the morning, the night before we dropped her at a party at a friend's house. And the plan was we would pick her back up in the morning. Her dog was here with us. We can hear Whitney, who's her support dog, panting a little bit in the background. Yeah, which normally she would have her dog with her all the time. Yes. But she was quite concerned that it might be a bit noisy at the party. It might just be too much for Whitney. And Emmy was, in my mind, doing really well. Well, she was happy, you know. She kind of had plans of what she was going to do for the following year.

9:37She was happy. She had just broken up from a relationship. so she was quite relieved to you know have a fresh start in the new year she's got lots of plans and you know it just seemed great that she was going to spend the evening with her friends I think it was about five o 'clock the next morning the phone went I mean you know she'd messaged during the night happy new year like she always did asked her if she was having a good time Are you OK? Yeah, she's fine. Twenty past five, something like that. The phone went and it's her friend's mum saying, we've just realised Emmy's not here. She's gone missing.

10:20Like we heard the group of friends were all deaf at the party. So apparently none of them had heard the door go or seen Emmy go. I mean, I don't know. But the mum said she heard the door go, came down and said, who's gone? And they realised Emmy had gone. And then she said her shoes are here. As soon as she said that, I just thought, this, yeah, this is not good. Like, there's no way Emmy would leave a party without her shoes. It's obviously 1st of January. It's freezing cold. It's got no coat. She'd left her coat there as well. They said, we're going to start going outside and look for her. Obviously, he said to Ray, Ray, wake up, him, he's gone missing.

11:09And he just jumped out of bed. He said, I'm going to go and look for her because that's, you know, with him, he, that's something wrong. I think probably left it about five minutes and I thought, actually, no, this isn't right. I'm going to ring the police and maybe they can get there, like, a lot quicker. Ray said he's going to drive along to where they lived which was Shoreham which is before you get to Bright and he's going to go and look along the beach there drive along there at that point I'm speaking to the police and I've said to them like she is very vulnerable because obviously she's only been missing 10 minutes so anyone else they're going to just say you know 25 year old person like she's only been gone 10 minutes I'm like, you know, she'd been in hospital for four years.

11:59She's only been out of hospital a year. She is very vulnerable. She'd self-harmed probably about, I think it was a few days before this. Right. And at that point, Min Ray still didn't know how severe that self-harm was. We knew she'd self-harmed, but that was a coping strategy for her, Emmy. and you're sort of speaking to me and I can tell that your mother's instinct kicked in that morning and you felt deep in your heart of hearts something was very terribly wrong right yeah Ray then discovers what's happened well Ray's driven you know he's on the phone the whole time and I'm obviously telling him the police they've they're going to put it to high risk because I've now explained you know everything that's gone on how you know how she is and that she's vulnerable He said, I've driven along Shoreham.

12:55I can't see her. I'm just going to drive to her flat. So I think I just stayed on the phone. He sent the children round. It's obviously my other children, the older ones, don't live here. And I think it was just something's wrong. Yes. You just know that this is not right. Emmy doesn't go missing this time in the middle of the night. No one knows where she is. so he sent my older children round that you need to be with mum because him is missing I don't know, I just had a horrible I've had that feeling before but this was just I don't know, something just didn't feel good about it at all and the kids was just saying mum Emmy's gone missing before, she's going to be alright and I can remember the police ringing and saying we're outside her flat is there a key and I said there should be one in her lock she had like a little lock give them the code for it and they said there's not a key in there I can't remember if that at that point they said to me that they know she's in there that I don't really remember anything like that um so obviously at that point we still don't know where she is me and Ray still don't know, Ray said, I'm not far away from her flat now.

14:22And when he got there, he said, I've got there, the police, there's police everywhere, Lou. And he kept going, you know, it's going to be all right. Kids are saying it's going to be all right. And I think one of the police come out and said she is in there. And I just remember him on the phone saying, oh, she's not breathing. She is in there, Lou, but she's not breathing. They're working on her. I don't know how long it was. I don't know how long it'd passed. Felt like ages. And I just remember him ringing again. And he just said, she's gone.

15:09But it was like, how? Yeah. How can she be gone that, like, so quick? We've got there so quickly. Everyone's got there so quickly. As well as having to deal with this horrific tragedy, you're then trying to piece together what has happened. Presumably you're wanting answers, you know, how has this happened, how has she done this? at what point do you find out amidst this sort of horrific nightmare that she had been on suicide forums and obtained this poison to kill herself when do you find that out Louise? Five months later so what are you thinking in the intermediary period I mean how are you coming to terms because I would imagine that as a parent you just want answers, right?

16:06Surely. I think you just, we were just in this fog of grief. Yeah. I mean, Emmy had tried to take her life before and we'd always managed to get there in time. Always managed to save her. And I think in our heads for five months, both of us were just thinking the same thing. How did she die so quick? How, why didn't we, why didn't we get there in time to save her? And I think that's all. I think you were just in our own world for those five months. She wasn't here and it was to survive it really. So when the police inform you that she's been on these suicide forums and that she has managed to very easily buy online poison to take her own life.

17:04And we're not going to mention the name either of the forum or indeed of the poison. Yeah. So we've just talked generically. What was your reaction to that?

17:15I just couldn't believe it. I think I was just completely gobsmacked with... I think I was just stunned because I'd read her mental health report that same day as I found out about Kenneth Law. And I don't know at that point if I did know about the website. I'm guessing I did, yeah. I'm guessing they came round and said, yeah, she was on a list. That's what they told me. And she's on a list of people that Kenneth Law has sold this poison to in the UK as well as having other international customers, if we could call them that. Yeah, and we're doing checks to see who's still alive and who, obviously, we know Emmy's not, her name was on the list.

18:10Let's deal with the suicide forums, first of all. Did you know they existed? Did you know Emmy was on them? What have you subsequently found out about how easy it is to access them? Yeah, I'd never heard of suicide forums ever before, even though, you know, spoken about suicide and self-harm and everything else. I got no idea suicide forums existed. I had no idea that, you know, once they told me about it, that, you know, it's not even on the dark web. No, it's on the open. It's openly available. You can log on. and there were some messages on there that you were subsequently shown that you think were Emmy.

18:55Yeah, someone came round to do an interview and said, do you want to have a look how easy it is to get on the forums? I just typed something in and said, this is, we think we've got a message from, that Emmy had posted on there and showed me it, which was absolutely heartbreaking when I read it and I knew straight away it was in me. Because it was her basically saying, look, I'm contemplating this, but I know it's going to break my parents' hearts. Yeah. So she was so mindful of the impact on you and your husband, but at the same time so clearly in a desperate situation. Yeah, I think there was something about a dog as well on one of them.

19:46Yeah. Like, so, yeah, I knew. And then we get the leap from that. And there's a debate to be had, isn't there, about whether such forum should exist. But then when we bring Kenneth Law into the equation, and the Times have reported on this extensively, and it's now the subject of a court case that is going to hopefully start in January after a series of delays. And then to make this even more difficult to comprehend, we then have a situation where we believe that Kenneth Law may have been contributing to suicide forums and encouraging people towards his own commercial enterprise, which is his own website's selling under the sort of cloud of selling cooking items, this poison for people to then take delivery of and then take their own lives.

20:40what was your reaction when the police revealed that that was the methodology used in this case I was just angry I'm still angry now I'm just angry with all of it to be fair the fact that she could have been stopped yes well let's talk about that because you later discover that Immy has confessed to her own mental health team that she has ordered a poison online that's in the November of 2022. The police investigate that, or at least look at that. Yeah, the police turned up at her door. And what happened? Well, they say that they didn't know... They say that they went because they'd had a report that Emmy was struggling with her mental health.

21:28But the kind of revelation that she's ordered this online poison isn't acted upon? No. no interpreter either but she was profoundly deaf so there wasn't even interpreter so I don't even know to this day did she understand what was being asked. Also Louise presumably you also think that the police need to have more awareness of this particular poison how frequently it's being used but also how fast acting it is? Yeah they definitely need to be more aware if they'd have acted sooner things could have been very different in Emmy's case and in some of the other cases. Also, it's been raised in a lot of inquests how available this poison is.

22:17So there has been prevention of future deaths already raised. Right. So judges have said, hang on a minute, we need to prevent future deaths by understanding this poison, understanding how quick acting it is, Because it strikes me, Louise, that in the case of IMI, the police are sort of working on the sort of timetable that you might look at with somebody taking their life with alcohol or an overdose or something. And your point is, no, in the case of this, you've got to be going into that home within minutes. Within minutes, yeah. And that didn't happen in IMI. That didn't happen in IMI. They waited about.

22:55They hadn't read the CAD report. they waited for someone to bring something to break the door down yeah so there's a lack of understanding yeah potency and also the ambulances i mean the ambulances aren't carrying the antidote no which is something else that should be happening you know because there has been so many deaths by this poison why are they not carrying the antidote did you know that you could buy poison online? I had absolutely no idea. When you discover that this is part of a much wider case and that this man, Kenneth Law, who could be a mass murderer and your daughter, one of his victims, what was your reaction to that, Louise?

23:43I still don't think it's sunk in, to be honest. still it's just something that you just can't imagine happening in your wildest dreams like someone online selling a poison for people to take their own lives with like what kind of person even thinks something like that you just can't, it's one of those things that you just can't get your head round. Like, you know it's happened. You spoke to other families that are in that same position. And I think we probably all feel the same. It's just very final, isn't it? It's, you know, it's... Well, I think as well in Immy's case, you've detailed all of the times that she did attempt to take her own life, which were unsuccessful.

24:40you've highlighted the speed with which this final incident took place in such a short space of time and therefore it does speak to the potency of the poison that is sent you know people might say in raising awareness of online poisons being bought online well people can buy paracetamol people can buy alcohol they can take their own lives with that but this is speaking to something very different isn't it because i mean what surprised me about it is you have trouble buying more than two packets of paracetamol in any given chemist right the ease with which she was able to buy this and have it sent to her door yeah is frankly horrifying combine that with how vulnerable she and the others were and are on suicide forums it speaks to something inherently evil that somebody would try and cash in on that misery in this regard and facilitate suicide.

25:45I think the scary thing is how long it's been going on for. I think that's what's scary, that it's been known about and nothing had been done about it. What do you hope will happen? I mean, clearly you're hoping that Kenneth Law is sent down for a huge amount of time but in terms of raising awareness of this you've been through it I know you're in touch with other parents whose children have also taken their own life through this means people don't know enough about this stuff no I think people think it's an easy way out and I don't think they actually realize that this is final and it is not an easy way out it is the most painful death ever.

26:36I think that's what's scary, that the pain that these youngsters would have been in on their own is...

26:53I think there needs to be a lot more awareness about it all. What's your message to the tech giants that platform some of these suicide forms?

27:07Spend a day in my shoes now without my curl hair.

27:16Some will argue she was 25.

27:23She was unhappy. We've had some of these arguments raised of the assisted dying debate that's been going on in Parliament, right? She has agency in how she lives her life and if she chooses not to live her life and to take her own life, that that is her choice. What's your response to that? Emmy would still be alive now if it wasn't for Kenneth Law. And I know that. He didn't give any of these people a chance.

28:02to stay here. Absolutely, I... And the other thing about the forums is that if one were to try and infiltrate them and provide support to people who are clearly in a desperate situation because they're contemplating taking their own lives, you're actually blocked from making a contribution. I know you've looked into this, Louise. What have you discovered about how these forums operate? Yeah, I think, well, you know, obviously they go on there to reach out, some of them, to other people that are feeling the same way because someone's struggling with mental health. You know, they do feel alone. So maybe some of them, you know, they want some support, someone that's understanding about how they feel.

28:56but that's not what that forum does if you try and help somebody else that needs help you're going to be automatically blocked you're not gonna you're they're not on there to let you try and support people to lead them to the right route somewhere to get help because emmy knew where to get help yes she'd been under the mental health system for a long time So she knew the right things to do. She knew how to ask for help. And some of these people don't. And you just don't get a chance on there to reach out for help. You've tried to raise awareness of all of this through doing interviews with the media and taking part in podcasts like ours and documentaries.

29:48I mean, is enough said about this at school? No, I don't think so. So I don't think mental health is probably talked about enough, which is scary because there seems to be such a lot of children struggling with their mental health now. And I'd hate for anyone to go down that route that Imi's been down. You know, it's such a long route and the support, it's just not there. Also the correlation between young people suffering from mental health problems and then trying to find solutions online that actually exacerbate the problem is something very scary that I don't think their parents understand because let's be honest, Louise, we're not navigating these worlds like they are.

30:33We're not on the social media. We're not being led down these paths. Have you found comfort from speaking to other parents who have been affected by this? I have found comfort, but I think it's scary as well. It's scary to hear their stories. and to hear that there's so many of them yeah that's scary because obviously when it happened to emmy you feel you're alone and obviously you just want to bear the thought that would happen to anyone else but as we've gone further and further along in this journey it's it's horrifying the amount of people and just the way it's happened. And finally, what would justice for Immy look like to you?

31:25I don't think there's anything that could be justice. I feel like people have completely let her down. So much like, I want to say, the mental health team let her down, the police let her down. I mean, if Kenneth Law gets his just desserts following this court case next year, will that bring any comfort? I don't think there's anything that could bring me comfort, but I hope we get some kind of justice. I hope he's extradited to England to face us over here. So he's only being tried in Canada for the Canadian cases, but not being tried for any of the international ones and not for the 99 UK victims, including ME.

32:19So that's something you'd like to see. Yeah, definitely. Should the government be pressuring the Canadians? 100%. Hopefully we can bring him to England and face us all here. Louise and Ann, thank you very, very much indeed for sharing such a difficult story on The Daily 2. Thank you.

32:42Coming up next, I'll be speaking to the sister of a young woman who fell victim to the suicide forum and now campaigns to make the internet a safer place.

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35:06Amy Walton from Southampton died aged 21 in October 2022 after ingesting a substance which her family now understand was supplied by Kenneth Law. She was found dead in a hotel room in Slough, Berkshire with a man who was unknown to Amy's family. He had flown over from the US, was someone Amy had connected with via the same suicide forum that Amy Nunn had posted on. He was questioned by police but released without charge. Adele Walton told me her story. Let's begin by you telling me what Amy was like. Amy was a really creative person. She was mad about music, specifically Pharrell. She got on stage with Pharrell Williams five times in her life through sheer determination.

35:55And she was a really talented musician. She taught herself saxophone, harmonica, and she had piano lessons from a young age. Really gifted artist. But Amy was also neurodivergent. So I think that also played into the fact that she really sought out community and a safe haven online for many of her years of life as a teenager, but also later in her life too. And did she have mental health problems that you were aware of? Amy from a young age because of being bullied in school she did have various difficulties with anxiety and depression from around the age of 14 she was also diagnosed with OCD and I feel that also from my research from writing the book I found out that neurodivergent people are at more risk of problematic internet use which is what the World Health Organization considers as behaviors that are harmful online and that may put people at risk.

36:50So Amy definitely fell into that category. Without causing you unnecessary distress, can you take me back to the moment that you found out that she had died? Yeah, it was really hard. I was actually in the New Forest camping with my partner and I had come out of the caravan and I see my parents driving up in the car and I honestly thought they had come to take us on a walk and it was 8.30 in the morning and I thought, why are we going on a walk so early? I've only just got to the campsite. And basically then I saw my mum's face and tears were streaming down and immediately I felt that something's happened to Amy because in the months leading up to that, she had been involved with mental health services and she had sort of fallen through the cracks really and we felt that she wasn't given the care that she really needed.

37:39That's a pattern actually that we heard from Amy Nunn's mum, this idea of a young woman in crisis and not being supported. At what point did you discover that she had taken her own life? We were immediately told by the police that Amy had died in a hotel room and the first suspicion that they had was this was a case of potentially assisted suicide. So I had already worried about Amy's mental health, that she was vulnerable to suicide. And when we found out that she was in a hotel room with a stranger, we only became more concerned about how Amy had come to find herself in this situation and why she was in that situation in the first place.

38:26So that was how we found out. Now, it should be stressed that the American man that was found with Amy was later released by police without charge. But what can you tell me about his presence in that hotel room. How long was he with her for? He was with Amy in the room for 11 days. So I feel really concerned that this man had sinister intentions and there are so many more questions in our mind around, was this man an incel? There were pretty much hundreds of notes, scrawlings left by Amy in the room all over that basically indicated to us that she was really distressed and really fearful and so far we don't really feel that they've been taken seriously.

39:13That evidence suggests that she was in the grip of a complete and utter mental health breakdown in the presence of somebody that was frankly a stranger to you and your parents. When did you start finding out and unpicking what had led up to this in terms of her being on the suicide forums and then the manner in which she did take her own life? we've received sort of piecemeal bits of information from Thames Valley Police in particular about their investigation into the website that Amy was on and that so many others have been on but most of the information we've learned has been from journalists it's been from articles published in the Times in the BBC in the Telegraph that have basically pointed towards this bigger picture of insidious actors who run a network and run this forum with basically the only intention of targeting and coercing young people into taking their lives.

40:08This is a website that if you try to set up an account, they ask you, why are you joining? And if you say, because bereaved families who I know have tried to do this, if you say, I'm joining to help people and direct them to support services, they will not let you set up an account on this website. So it's a toxic breeding ground. It's not a safe space. It's not a community that helps people and sends them to support. And sadly, that's exactly what Amy needed at that time. And Adele, it's a difficult one, isn't it? Because you have this bizarre situation where this strange man who's much older than your sister is in a hotel with her for nearly two weeks in the lead up to her taking her own life.

40:49he's released. We know that helping somebody to commit suicide is a crime. Have you found that legislation and the debate around it unhelpful because it's almost sanctioning suicide and in the context of what's happened to your sister that makes things quite problematic? It's definitely been a sort of conversation that I've been paying close attention to. I don't think there's been much connection made between that bill and the potential for loopholes when it comes to assisting suicide. And I think that only shows that there's a real gap in terms of legislation around assisted suicide, but also the fact the Suicide Act in itself is from 1961.

41:30So that's way before the internet and social media existed. And, you know, I think police are struggling to get to grips with where they need to look for evidence, how to get data from certain platforms in order to get evidence that shows that someone has potentially assisted someone in suicide. I know that my sister and this American man were actually using Discord, for example, which is, of course, encrypted. And Amy - What's Discord? Is that a messaging - Discord is a messaging platform that's got end-to-end encryption. Right. Amy never used Discord before, I think, her partaking on this website and this forum that promotes suicide.

42:09So again, I feel that the loopholes are being kept up to date with by the insidious actors. But then in terms of policing and legislation, we're not acting quick enough. Yes, because there's no reason you would go on a messaging site like Discord unless you were advised to, because the end game for the person who you're conversing with is for the messages to never see the light of day. It's also interesting in terms of the assisted suicide debate, because Kenneth Law is being tried in Canada and assisted suicide has gone so far in Canada now that it is being offered to people for mental health problems.

42:44I don't support that personally. I think we need a prevention approach. We shouldn't be accepting that, you know, some people will just die by suicide. I think that's utterly wrong. I think it's a real moral failure to say that mentally ill people or vulnerable people should we should just accept that decision. I think we need to be looking so much further beyond that and saying, how can we prevent someone ever considering suicide and actually empowering them to live a healthy and happy life? Also, to circle back to your point about trying to get on the suicide forums in a bid to give an alternative narrative, i.e.

43:22one of hope. hang on, please don't do this, you're actually actively blocked. So those who are considering this aren't given any alternative to being sent down one direction, one route. Exactly. And again, I think this touches on the free speech debate. And actually, you know, the founders of this website pushed back against the Online Safety Act. They've pushed back against Ofcom. On the day the Online Safety Act came in, they put an announcement on their website saying, basically the British government are trying to silence us and censor us and we won't be censored. Yet they will censor people on that website who try and help people in their time of need.

44:01So again, I think that that debate sort of falls flat, really. Yes, they almost feel like they're on some kind of moral mission. And that's also something that needs to be debunked at a much higher level. At what point did you hear the name Kenneth Law? and what was your reaction when you found out that this is all operating in plain sight on the internet. That's the thing that struck me in the course of researching and presenting this podcast. This isn't something going on on the dark web or on the so-called online black market. This is stuff that's ready available through a sort of online supermarket.

44:38Absolutely. And that's the thing that is really haunting because anyone to this day could still fall victim to this same trap. We first heard of Kenneth Law after the Times investigation by James Beale. And he was working really closely with David Parfit, another bereaved parent who lost his son Tom to the same forum and to Kenneth Law's supply. Kenneth Law was posing as a doctor on this website and essentially saying, look, this is a pain-free method, I really recommend it. And in the meantime, he was profiting from young people's vulnerabilities on this website, including Amy's. And honestly, when we heard of his name, when we heard that there was someone doing this, I think about him every day.

45:23I think about all of the people involved in this awful website every day. And we've got to live with that as families. But we're fighting so that no other family has to go through this because honestly, I can tell you that the trauma leaves an impact that never goes away. It's unimaginable, really. And I think it's also very difficult for the families who have to kind of carry out their own online forensics. I mean, was it difficult? You say Thames Valley police helped a little bit, but did you have to turn detective to find out, go back over Amy's online history, basically, to piece together what actually happened?

46:02Sadly, we don't have Amy's devices. We still have not received them three years on after she's passed. Why? Thames Valley Police has given them over to the National Crime Agency for them to look at them, hopefully, in the kind of law investigation that might happen in this country. but essentially we have been sort of informed of other bits of information from again like you say other journalists who have been able to see what Amy was posting but also from our legal team who have done so much work themselves and you know it shouldn't be down to families legal teams to do investigations coronaries even it should be down to police of course we can blame Kenneth Law taking him out of the picture for a moment who are you blaming in a kind of vicarious way I suppose in a macro way for the existence of both the forums and then websites that sell these substances and chemicals?

46:57The blame at the moment, of course, it lies with these two American individuals who've created this forum. But the problem is that insidious actors will always exist in our world. So another forum might pop up. So Ofcom and the government have so much responsibility here. So there are so many systemic failures here that have meant that this forum has been allowed to exist since 2018 and that at least 133 people in the UK have died as a result. It's difficult because we don't want to name the forum. We also don't want to give people ideas and therefore I can't really openly discuss with you how easy it is to get to where we are.

47:35And what's incredible about all this, Adele, and this has been highlighted by the Molly Rose Foundation, which is the foundation, the charity set up in memory of Molly Russell, the teenager who took her own life after she went down this online rabbit hole of searching for suicide and then the algorithm giving it back to her. That's what I find hard to believe, that the tech giants are platforming this and there's something in the matrix, so to speak, which feeds suicide inspiration to people who are suicidal. That strikes me as being wholly wrong. Absolutely. They are failing on so many levels, on a corporate level, on a human and moral compass level.

48:16They are cashing in on a crisis, on a youth mental health crisis, and they've consistently failed to remove harmful content, to de-platform harmful content that they know is causing this type of harm to teenagers like Molly Russell and so many others across the world. Are you lobbying the British government on this? Is anyone listening? Have you been speaking to any ministers or politicians? Where have you got with that? We are lobbying the British government on this. We had an event in Parliament yesterday where Darren Pathy, my MP, kindly hosted Bereaved Families and the Molly Rose Foundation in our campaign.

48:53And so far, it does feel slightly that beyond that, we have fallen on deaf ears. At the moment, Ofcom has said that they are allowing a voluntary response from the website creators. And we just don't think that's good enough because we know we know these people are sadists essentially and they will not volunteer to stop on their power trip. I mean it was October 2022 that Amy died we're around speaking around the time of the anniversary of her death how have you been how are your parents you say it's you're living a daily nightmare which I can well imagine. Yeah I am and And I am only doing this work and campaign work so that no one else has to go through what we've been through as a family.

49:40I would, of course, like so many other bereaved families, I would love to grieve and mourn in private. I would love to not have to relive the trauma of what Amy went through over and over again to strangers on a daily basis. But we are only doing this with the hope that action will come. And we really hope that the government and Ofcom act really swiftly on this. Adele Walton, thank you very much indeed for joining me on The Daily Tea. Thank you. We'll be back tomorrow, 5pm.

50:57We'll see you next time. Do right by yourself and your business and search X-E-R-O for your free trial. Conditions apply. Grainger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building. You're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog, HVAC on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering, and 24-7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done.

From the publisher

Camilla Tominey speaks to the families of British victims targeted by Kenneth Law, a former chef who admitted 14 counts of counselling or aiding suicide in Canada.


They discuss the disturbing rise of unregulated suicide forums – where Law allegedly marketed toxic chemicals – and the alarming ease with which young people, including Imogen Nunn, a social media influencer, and 21-year-old Aimee Walton, were able to access fatal substances.


The families scrutinise the systemic failures that allowed Law to operate for years despite repeated warnings from coroners, and their fight to see him face justice in the UK.


Lead Producer: Georgia Coan

Executive Producer: Charlotte Seligman

Video Producer: Will Walters

Studio Operator: Meghan Searle

Editor: Camilla Tominey


Highlights

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