A British coroner has called for an urgent legal overhaul after a landmark conviction of an online poison seller linked to multiple suicides. The case has exposed a dark corner of the internet where deadly substances are traded with impunity, raising questions about unaccountable power and regulatory failure.
Senior coroner Sarah Ormond-Walshe, presiding over the inquest into the death of 38-year-old Michael Dunbar, issued a stark warning to the government. 'Current laws are not fit for purpose. The ease with which lethal substances can be obtained online is a scandal,' she said. Her comments came minutes after a jury returned a verdict of suicide, directly attributed to a package of sodium nitrite purchased from a website run by Kenneth Law, a former chef from Ontario, Canada.
Law, 61, was convicted last week on 14 counts of second-degree murder in Canada for supplying poison to vulnerable individuals across the globe. But the UK inquest revealed a systemic failure. Dunbar, a software engineer from Leeds, had been struggling with depression. He ordered the poison in March 2023. It arrived in an unmarked package within days. No checks. No questions. No intervention.
Sources confirm that Law's operation was sophisticated. He ran multiple websites, marketed as 'suicide kits,' and used encrypted payment methods. British authorities were alerted by Canadian police in 2022, but no action was taken until after Dunbar's death. 'The trail of bodies is long,' a police source told me. 'But the regulatory gaps are wider than the Atlantic.'
Documents obtained by this newspaper show that the government had been warned about online poison sales as early as 2020. A Home Office memo from May that year, marked 'sensitive,' outlined the risks. It was ignored. Then in 2021, the Ministry of Justice shelved a proposal to criminalise the sale of lethal substances without a licence. The industry lobbyists had won.
Ormond-Walshe has now issued a Prevention of Future Deaths report to the Home Secretary. She demands:
- A new criminal offence for selling substances with intent to cause harm.
- Mandatory age verification and mental health warnings on all websites selling chemicals.
- A central database to track purchases of lethal substances across borders.
The report lands on a desk that has seen too many such warnings. Last year, 6,069 people died by suicide in the UK. The numbers are rising. Yet the government's response has been sluggish at best. A Home Office spokesperson said they are 'considering the coroner's recommendations carefully.' Careful. That's the word they use while bodies pile up.
This is not just about Kenneth Law. It is about a system that values profit over protection. It is about a regulatory vacuum that allows charlatans to peddle death. And it is about a government that has failed to act.
I have followed the money. Law's operation generated millions. He sold to an estimated 1,200 people in over 40 countries. The UK alone had at least 272 known purchases. How many are now dead? The police won't say. But sources confirm the number is 'significant.'
There is a reckoning coming. The coroner has sounded the alarm. Now it is for the public to demand action. Because the suits will only move when they feel the heat.
More as this story develops. For now, know this: the internet is a marketplace of poisons, and the regulators are asleep at the wheel.
