Kenneth Law pleads guilty to aiding suicide, Crown drops murder charges

A Mississauga, Ont., man who sold toxic chemicals online pleaded guilty in a Newmarket, Ont., courtroom on Friday to 14 counts of aiding suicide.

However, he will no longer face murder charges. The Crown said that prosecuting those charges would be “impossible.”

Kim Prosser, whose son Ashtyn took his own life just a month shy of his 20th birthday, held back tears as she remembered him.

“Its been three years for me just at the end of March. Three years of uncelebrated birthdays,” Prosser said. “Amazing, amazing boy. He’s so smart … I mean up until the point of starting struggles the day before his 18th birthday, always happy.”

Prosser said her son’s mental health took a turn for the worse during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic. He killed himself in March 2023.

Ashtyn is one of the 14 Ontarians named in court today whom the 60-year-old Kenneth Law has now admitted to helping facilitate suicide.

“Hearing his name read in there is tough,” Prosser says.

After being delivered to court, Law sat largely motionless as an agreed statement of facts detailing what he did was read out.

The Mississauga man ran websites selling toxic chemicals and other items that could be used for suicide, sending more than 1,200 packages to people in more than 40 countries.

Law also admitted to providing the chemicals that led to the death by suicide of 79 people in Britain.

READ MORE: Little has changed since Kenneth Law’s arrest, says father whose son died by suicide

“Following his guilty pleas today, the judge will take into account the full extent of Law’s criminal behaviour … An outcome that guarantees all victims and families in the U.K. will see justice … He will be sentenced for his offending globally,” the U.K.’s National Crime Agency says when asked why British authorities provided evidence to the Canadian case instead of seeking extradition.

But that decision is not sitting well with some of the British victims’ families.

“For months, we have been told that the system is working and that existing measures are enough. They are not,” said David Parfett, whose 22-year-old son Tom died after consuming a substance purchased from Law.

Also upsetting for some families is that Law’s 14 counts of first-degree murder are being dropped.

Crown prosecutors explains that the Supreme Court declined to rule on the circumstances under which a person who helps another with suicide can be charged with murder.

That leaves another Ontario court ruling as the top legal guidance, which says a murder charge can only be sustained if a person provided the lethal substance and exerted force over the victim’s free will.

The murder charges are expected to be withdrawn after a sentencing hearing this fall.

The Criminal Code says those guilty of aiding suicide can get up to 14 years in prison.

READ MORE: Coroner reports link 4 suicides in New Zealand to Kenneth Law