Latest news with #DavidParfett
The Guardian
09-07-2025
- The Guardian
Poisoned: Killer in the Post review – the terrible story of the online site for selling lethal doses
What – and I ask myself this question with increasing frequency and seriousness – are we going to do about people? What, more specifically, are we going to do about the number of irredeemably wicked ones and the amount of suffering they bring into the world? If you can get through the two-part documentary Poisoned: Killer in the Post without sliding down on to the floor in despair as these questions thunder through your mind – well, you're a better viewer than I. Poisoned is a meticulous chronicle of the equally meticulous investigation conducted by Times journalist James Beal into the identity of the online supplier of lethal chemicals to people who had congregated on a forum where they shared their suicidal thoughts, discussed methods and, often, plans for taking their own lives. Beal was alerted to the potential story by David Parfett in 2022. A year before, Parfett had lost his 22-year-old son, Tom, to suicide. 'It's just a different world after that.' Parfett had found the forum that Tom had posted on, posed as a new user, and soon found himself directed to a website that, hidden in plain sight among a variety of other goods either permanently sold out or astronomically priced (salt for $9,999 and so on), sold the poison to anyone who ordered it, with no registration requirements and no checks. Tom continued to post on the forum for a short while after he had taken the poison, about his racing heart, then creeping numbness. 'That's my son dying,' says David. Louise Nunn lost her daughter Immy in the same terrible way after years of supporting her through mental health crises that had led to her being sectioned. She took the poison a few hours after her latest release, about which her parents had not been informed; Dawn her stepson Adam – 'He was so loved'; in Arizona, Malyn lost her brother, and Lynn her son, Miles. Like Parfett, they all tried to track down the responsible parties and interest the police in their findings and their growing certainty that one man was behind the distribution of potentially thousands of packages and deaths. Beal synthesises what they have learned with his own discoveries and finds the man behind the website. Pretending to be a customer with concerns about the efficacy of the product, we hear his extraordinary conversation with a Canadian chef called Kenneth Law, who cheerfully confirms for him that people 'in the UK, US and Canada' and other countries have died from his supplies. 'At least a dozen … I've been kept busy, yeah!' On we go, covering Beal's exposé after further investigations, which leads to Law being charged with 14 counts of first degree murder and 14 of counselling or aiding suicide in relation to Canadian deaths. Investigations into multiple deaths linked to him in other countries are ongoing, and the National Crime Agency is considering the possibility of extraditing him. Law has not been found guilty, and did not respond to the allegations made in the series. The documentary does not, I think refreshingly, dwell too long on Law's possible motivations. Sociopathy? Psychopathy? Badness? Some unholy combination of the above? Would it help us to know? Can we protect ourselves against any of them? The more you hear, and the more technology facilitates the spread of the worst of humanity, the more unlikely it seems. Beneath the giant shadow cast by Law, however, are others. There are the failures of the police to link the deaths of people found with the same poison in their possession or who had been posting on the same forum. There seems to have been a readiness across forces to tick the box marked 'suicide', close the case and feel no wider sense of responsibility to prevent further harm. There is the lag between old laws (in the UK, around the sale of poisons, the requirements to report, what constitutes assisting suicide, and international compatibilities) and new technology. There is the widespread and ongoing failure of all sorts of authorities and corporate megaliths to monitor even the vilest, most dangerous tracts of the internet. Whatever happens, of course, it will not bring any of the beloved lost sons and daughters back to their stricken parents. It will not restore her brother to Malyn, or any of the untold number of victims whose deaths may ultimately be laid at Law's door. What a terrible, terrible world. Poisoned: Killer in the Post is on Channel 4 now. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@ or jo@ In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at
The Sun
08-07-2025
- The Sun
My son died in agony in Premier Inn after buying poison from sick suicide site…grief drove me to hunt down evil seller
SCROLLING through a string of deeply disturbing online posts, David Parfett was horrified. Dozens of desperate users were openly discussing suicide - sharing not just their intentions, but graphic, step-by-step methods. 15 15 Even more chilling were the replies. Instead of offering help or directing them to support services, other users cheered them on, offered praise and gave practical advice on how to end their lives. As David read on, one specific substance was mentioned again and again - a deadly poison users recommended, complete with instructions on where to buy it and how to take it. It was the chemical his 22-year-old son Tom had used just months earlier, after being drawn into this same dark corner of the internet. With just a few clicks, David found himself on a website where he was able to order a lethal dose of the substance - which The Sun is not naming - for £50. 'It arrived a few days later - I found myself with a packet of the poison I knew my son had used,' David, 56, tells The Sun. 'I couldn't believe what I was seeing. 'It was clear that there were people who were selling these poisons and other methods on the site as well. 'It was quite obvious to me how Tom was able to get it - and that there's people out there who are posting this poison to vulnerable people, facilitated by internet forums like this one. 'It was blindingly obvious that there's a bigger problem here.' Determined to protect others from suffering the tragic fate of his son - and with police 'uninterested' in probing the sites David had found, the dad turned to journalist James Beal. My son died in agony in Premier Inn after buying poison from sick suicide site…I was so distraught I hunted down seller That call triggered an investigation that unmasked chef Kenneth Law, from Toronto, Canada as the man suspected of supplying a lethal substance to suicidal people around the world. So far, 131 deaths have been linked to Law's products - with at least 97 in the UK and Law is currently in jail, awaiting trial. Canadian police say he sent 1,209 packages to 41 countries. Now, a new Channel 4 series, Poisoned: Killer in the Post, explores the case and the scale of devastation left in its wake. Childhood struggles The two-part documentary follows David and other bereaved relatives as they grapple with the ease with which this substance is shipped around the globe - along with their combined efforts to track down Law, 59 and bring him to account. 'This is a man that knew what he was doing,' David, a data director from Twickenham, south-west London, says. 'Just because he was posting the means [for people] to kill themselves rather than applying it in person doesn't make it any less of a murder case, in my opinion. 15 15 15 'The scale of loss is astonishing.' David remembers Man United fan Tom as a high achiever with a distinctive laugh, a dry sense of humour and a 'lovely group of friends.' A gifted student, he excelled at maths and got 'almost perfect GCSEs' - but this 'came at a cost,' as Tom, who was autistic and had ADHD, struggled with academic pressure. He developed severe anxiety which led him to taking some time out of school, and his mental health declined sharply when he was 19, after a fellow sixth-form student died by suicide. 'I think that was the starting place of actually Tom contemplating doing the same himself,' David says. 'He started openly discussing an idea about ending his own life.' While Tom, who went on to study at the University of St Andrews, was engaged with mental health services, he 'was not getting the support he felt he should get,' David says. There was a knock on the door about five o'clock in the morning... I think at that moment I knew what had happened David In the weeks leading up to his death, Tom - whose parents are not together - had been staying with his mum. On the day of his death he had said that he was checking into a mental health support facility. David says: 'He was telling us quite a positive story of [...how] he was hopeful that they'd be able to help him. Obviously that clearly wasn't what was on his mind.' Lonely death Learning of Tom's death was 'every parent's nightmare,' he says. 'There was a knock on the door about five o'clock in the morning [...] and there was a police car outside. I think at that moment I knew what had happened,' he recalls. 'I felt really sorry for the [two] young policemen standing there, shaking and clearly quite agitated. '[I] was saying, 'Is it Tom? Has he killed himself?'' 15 15 15 The police explained that Tom had been found in a Premier Inn in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, with the deadly substance. Not wanting others to be harmed, he had stuck a note to his door warning that there was poison inside, which prompted an evacuation of the hotel. In the aftermath of Tom's death, David says he went into 'emergency mode,' arranging his funeral, dealing with the coroner's office and alerting his friends to the tragedy. 'You're just in shock,' he says. 'It was only when that shock started to abate that I became curious about understanding what had happened.' David felt that the police investigation 'had its blinkers on' - looking at what had happened in the hotel room and not the wider circumstances that led to Tom taking his life. 'Tom lived a lot of his life online,' David explains. 'I think it's only natural these days if you've grown up using the internet, you'd turn to the internet if you wanted to find a group of like-minded people that could help you understand your own feelings.' He continues: 'So, not long after his death, I sat down and almost put myself in Tom's shoes [...] a young person, vulnerable with their mental health, but intelligent and curious. "And I did what I think we would do if we're looking to buy something online - just started searching.' Twisted enablers He was stunned by how easy it was to stumble on forums offering 'help' to suicidal people - only they weren't offering help to recover, they were helping people to kill themselves. The dad found how-to manuals, adverts from users looking for partners to join them in suicide pact and post celebrating so-called 'success stories' of suicides. Anyone recommending support services was banned from the site. Spending time on the site took its toll on grieving David: 'I'd just lost my son. I wasn't necessarily in the best place myself. And that really made me very aware of the dangers of these places, being pretty vulnerable at the time myself.' He has since discovered that Tom started a forum post when he took the substance. 15 15 15 Heartbreaking scenes in the documentary show the dad reading through the comments his son posted as he died. 'What this substance actually does is horrific,' David says in the series. 'The poison suffocates the body from the inside. I know Tom would've died in agony. And yet nobody calls an ambulance. Nobody tries to find him. Nobody asks the question, 'Where are you? What can we do?' It's all congratulatory messages.' Having seen for himself how easy it was to source the poison - and how the forum promoted its use - David says he urged the police to act. But he says this 'came to nothing' - as the substance is legal to buy, sell and export. Fearful that many more could die like Tom, David contacted Times reporter James Beal. The journalist went undercover to request a phone consultation with Law, in which the seller boasted that 'many' of his customers had died. He also admitted he'd sent 'hundreds' of packages to the UK. A week after Law was exposed in The Times, he was arrested. He is now awaiting trial in Canada next year, facing a total of 14 first-degree murder charges and 14 counts of aiding and counselling suicide. His lawyer has said he will be pleading not guilty. Present threat While Law's arrest came as a 'tremendous relief' to Tom's family, David says there is still 'a long way to go' to crack down on the substance and the sites that promote suicide. 'I'm sitting here talking nearly four years after Tom died, and I can tell you that everything I've described you could still do today,' he says. 'The scary thing is that there are other people still supplying exactly the same poison. There are other poisons being supplied through communities like this as well.' 15 15 15 He is calling for tighter regulations on pro-suicide forums - and wants the Home Office to increase scrutiny on substances imported from abroad, adding: 'It's relatively easy to do and yet we're not doing it - and yet the cost of not doing it is in lives.' David is also hopeful that the C4 documentary, out on Wednesday, will help those who are supporting a loved-one through mental health difficulties. 'If you know somebody who's really struggling, please don't be as naive as I was and think that, 'They won't [take their life],' he adds. 'Please, please put together safety plans with people who you think are potentially thinking of ending their own life. And please recognise the harm some of these internet sites are horrible dark places that do a lot of harm to people's mental health.'
Telegraph
08-07-2025
- Telegraph
‘My son took his own life after a website showed him how'
David Parfett's son Tom was dying while a group of people from around the world not only did nothing to help him, they egged him on. He was live-blogging his own death on a suicide forum after ingesting a poison fellow users had recommended that he order online. Forty-four people reacted with 'hugs' and 'sad face' emojis to his post saying he had taken the lethal substance. Messages said 'RIP' and 'all the best'. As his profile goes silent, one member concludes: 'I think they are gone'. The 22-year-old, studying philosophy at St Andrews University in Scotland, died alone at a Premier Inn in Surrey in 2021 in, David is sure, 'excruciating pain'. It would be a year before his father saw a photo of the packet that contained the poison – which we are not naming – sold for just $59 (£47). Written on it was the website from which it was purchased. David would later learn the site was run by Kenneth Law, a Canadian chef who is now facing 14 counts of first-degree murder and another 14 of counselling and aiding suicide, in Ontario. He denies the charges. He is also accused of sending more than 1,200 packages of poison to young people across the globe. In the UK, the National Crime Agency is investigating potential offences linked to the deaths of 98 individuals who purchased items online to assist with suicide, including several deaths linked to Law, but no charges have yet been brought. Poisoned, a new two-part Channel 4 documentary, tells how Tom's death sparked an international hunt to unmask Law after David turned to James Beal, an investigative reporter at The Times. He had been despairing at the failure of the police to join the dots between various cases. 'It's very, very limited information available to families,' he says. 'You kind of get patted on the head, and then you're into a very blinkered process. At the end of the day, it's the journalists who stopped it, rather than police.' Neha Raju, 23, another Law customer, died in Guildford six months after Tom but Surrey Police did not appear to link the deaths. The first episode also features heartbreaking testimony from families across the world. Louise Nunn talks about her daughter, Immy, who took her own life in her flat in Brighton aged 25. She had more than 780,000 followers on her TikTok account, Deaf Immy, with humorous videos raising awareness of deafness and mental health. In Arizona, while police thought a young man named Miles had taken an accidental overdose, his sister Malyn, who worked for the cyber unit of the FBI, put her skills to use. She began tracing the links between the suicide forum used by her brother – 'an echo chamber of despair' – and Law's website, which looked like it purveyed specialist foods, selling the poison (though Miles did not buy his substance from Law's sites). The second episode is a powerful call to arms by David as he and other families, along with Beal, piece together the global fallout from the forums and Law's poison-shipping enterprise. David is seen listening to the recording of the phone conversation that an undercover Beal had with Law. The Canadian revealed that Britons were some of his most 'frequent buyers', numbering 'literally in the hundreds', and admitted 'many, many, many, many' had died. So sure was he that he would get away with it, he added with a chuckle: 'They're not going to bring me over to the UK for this. It's too small.' 'That was really hard, to hear the voice of the person that I believe murdered my son,' says David on a video call from his home in Twickenham. 'But also oddly satisfying, having spent so long shouting in the dark about this, trying to get somebody to pay attention. That was the moment that I knew we could at least take one supplier off the streets.' For David, his son will always be the little Manchester United fan who ran around in his David Beckham shirt until he was too big to fit into it; whose perennial honesty saw one teacher praise his 'excellent moral compass'. Tom was open with his father about his suicidal thoughts, triggered by a school friend who had taken his own life at university. But David believes he was 'more vulnerable to being influenced online', as someone who had been diagnosed with autism at 12 and was struggling with extreme anxiety 'around academic achievement, friends, relationships'. Tom had dropped out of university during his Covid-disrupted second year. He restarted the course, but was sectioned for 24 hours after talking about suicide. His father, a 57-year-old data director, had previously appreciated the benefits that an online world brought to Tom, including allowing him to make short films, as he grew up in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, with his two siblings. 'It really helped him bring out that creative side. He had access to just the wider internet from probably the age of 13, 14. One of the reasons I am delighted that Poisoned has been made is that I don't want other parents in a situation like me, where they know somebody who potentially is considering suicide and are naive enough to not consider the internet to be a danger.' The scales fell from his eyes as he tried to track his son's 'digital footprints to understand what had happened'. Within minutes, David found himself on a suicide forum, not knowing at the time that it was the same one that led to Tom's death. David set up a profile 'pretending to be depressed' and ordered poison from Law. It arrived within 'a few days' – but he only found out a year later that Tom's purchase had come from the same man. Seeing a photo of an identical packet during the inquest process 'was a very hard moment', he tells me, 'understanding how easy it had been to find this poison and how cheap it had been to buy it'. Neither of the Parfetts had to turn to the 'dark web', but simply went through Google. As David says in the film: 'There were no checks. It was like buying a book online, all too easy... like posting a loaded gun to somebody and saying, 'Pull the trigger'.' Just a few weeks after discovering them, David is shown in the film scrolling through the stream of posts his son made as his life was coming to an end. As the real responses pop up menacingly on the screen, he says in the documentary: 'I know Tom would have died in agony. Yet nobody called an ambulance. Nobody tries to find him.' There were more horrors still to uncover. On the forum, David stumbled upon Tom's profile name listed and crossed out by one of the moderators, 'as someone who's been 'successful',' he says. 'It's absolutely callous.' He believes many of those involved in running such sites actually think they are 'doing a service. They seem to passionately believe that it's every individual's right to kill themselves whenever they want to, and they want to support people doing so.' He adds that he suspects, for some, 'there's a dark side, I guess maybe a sexual side to this as well – effectively some kind of kick from knowing that you've influenced someone to die.' Assisting suicide is a crime punishable by up to 14 years in prison in both the UK and Canada. The substance that killed Tom is reportable under the 53-year-old Poisons Act, compelling UK companies to alert the Home Office to buyers they believe are seeking to cause harm to themselves or others. But these rules do not apply to companies abroad. In April, regulator Ofcom opened an investigation into the forum used by Tom over whether it 'has failed/is failing to comply with its duties under the Online Safety Act 2023'. The evening before I speak to David, the Technology Secretary Peter Kyle told the audience of BBC Question Time: 'Suicide platforms, which have led to the death of children, are now no longer available in this country.' It is a bold claim refuted by David, but days later, the same forum announced that it has voluntarily decided to bar access to UK users from July. At the same time, it is publicising a method to get around the block. The trustees of the Thomas William Parfett Foundation, a charity set up in Tom's memory to campaign for suicide prevention, issued a statement to The Telegraph saying: 'We've seen this and other platforms use the tactic of a voluntary block in the UK and in other countries. They are likely to remove the voluntary block in the near future. We call for this site to be blocked in the UK through application of the Online Safety Act to stop the harms that this platform facilitates.' A government spokesperson responded: 'Under the Online Safety Act, services must take action to prevent users from accessing illegal suicide and self-harm content, and ensure children are protected from content that promotes or instructs on these behaviours – otherwise they could face tough enforcement action, including substantial fines. We're already seeing this in practice – Ofcom has launched enforcement action against companies failing to meet their online safety duties, including a suicide forum. Other harmful forums have also since withdrawn access for UK users.' David says he is calling for a 'single minister who's accountable for this and that there's proper training and resources. I guess the analogy would be, for fraud cases you get specialist police officers, specialist processes. People understand fraud.' He says 'the Home Office look at import of poison into the UK through the lens of counter-terrorism. The Department of Health own a suicide prevention policy, but none of these people are joined up at all. And then you've got Peter Kyle's department who look at it from a tech and regulation point of view.' However, even if one set of poisons is rigorously regulated, David fears that another will soon be put on the market, while suicide discussions are taking place 'on most of the major [social media] platforms. It's an ever-moving target and needs constant policing.' He is not seeking damages from anyone, insisting: 'I'm focused on looking forward – on other people avoiding the hell that we've been through as a family.' Having taken time off after Tom's death, and now redundancy, it has become 'a full-time job'. 'I truly believe that Tom would still be here if he hadn't been able to find an internet site that gave him very specific instructions about options on how to kill himself,' he says, advising concerned parents: 'Please don't be naive like I was. Please don't be embarrassed to ask the direct question, 'Are you thinking of self-harming? Are you thinking of taking your own life?'' Law may be behind bars and awaiting trial, but David knows there is so much still to do – and is convinced that purchasing poison online today is 'no harder at all' than when his desperate son turned to the internet four years ago. 'There are other Kenneth Laws out there doing exactly the same thing.' Poisoned: Killer in the Post airs on Channel 4 on Wednesday 9 July and Thursday 10 July. For further information on online safety go to the Thomas William Parfett Foundation and the Molly Rose Foundation; Samaritans operates a 24/7 helpline, which you can call free on 116 123, or email jo@
