Open this photo in gallery:
Leonardo Bedoya Forero, left, and Maria Lopez speak to media outside the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Newmarket, on Wednesday. Mr. Bedoya Forero found his daughter Jeshennia dead in his family’s home in Aurora, Ont., four years ago.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
A Toronto man whose son died by suicide after purchasing poison from Kenneth Law called for a public inquiry while speaking at a Wednesday sentencing hearing for Mr. Law, who has admitted he helped end the lives of at least 93 people.
Stephen Mitchell called on the Ontario government to take action, as he and other relatives of Mr. Law’s victims delivered harrowing public victim-impact statements on the first day of the hearing. Mr. Mitchell’s son, Stephen Jr., died just weeks before Mr. Law’s arrest in 2023. Mr. Mitchell criticized Canadian law enforcement for not recognizing the threat that Mr. Law posed before a British newspaper exposed his business in the spring of 2023.
He said grieving families want to know why the 61-year-old Mississauga engineer was able to operate an online business selling toxic salts and other deadly paraphernalia for years before his arrest. By the time Mr. Law was stopped, he had shipped more than 1,200 deadly parcels, including 330 to Britain and 157 within Canada, mostly to young people at risk of suicide.
“For more than two years, Mr. Law openly and knowingly sold deadly products to young vulnerable people around the world – including Canadians, including my son” Mr. Mitchell said.
Open this photo in gallery:
From left to right: Elena Kastoras, her partner Ethan Mitchell, Latha Mitchell, and Stephen Mitchell Sr. gather holding a photo of the late Stephen Mitchell Jr., at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, on Wednesday.ARLYN MCADOREY/AFP/Getty Images
Mr. Mitchell said that earlier intervention could have saved lives, including his son’s. “Premier Ford, I respectfully ask you to authorize an independent third-party inquiry into what occurred,” he said outside the court.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford rejected the idea of a public inquiry earlier this year. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Last May, Mr. Law pleaded guilty to multiple counts of aiding 14 suicides in Ontario, while also admitting to playing a role in 79 suicides in Britain. A court heard earlier this year that he made $300,000 after selling suicide kits for as little as $80 apiece.
Justice Michelle Fuerst is now hearing evidence that will help her mete out a penitentiary sentence against Mr. Law.
Crown attorney Peter Westgate said the court will hear victim-impact statements from a total of 74 people this week.
Grieving families detail immense loss at Kenneth Law sentencing hearing
Prosecutors have read several written statements into the record, including one from British parents of a 14-year-old boy.
The child died in 2021 and his parents said they will always remember him as a “beautiful young man.” The parents wrote they will forever wonder what their son would have grown up to look like, had he lived to be 16, 18 or 21 years old.
Prosecutors also read a statement from Leonardo Bedoya Forero, an asylum seeker from Colombia. He found his daughter Jeshennia dead in his family’s home in Aurora, Ont., four years ago.
Now, he says, the indelible image of finding his daughter on that day has overtaken almost all his memories of happier times. “How was I supposed to protect my daughter?” Mr. Bedoya Forero wrote. “There are the dangers that you look out for, and the dangers that you don’t know exist.”
He described Mr. Law as a sinister presence in his dealings with young people he met online – a man who did not “guide them toward hope,” he said, but who instead “paved a path toward death.”
Kenneth Law, who admitted to aiding suicides, told psychiatrist he saw his actions as humane
Some parents tearfully appeared in the witness box to speak of heart-wrenching loss. Some said that pain that began with the immediate mourning of their children has never stopped, and has since snowballed into fractured relationships and lost livelihoods.
Sarabjit Rana, a Toronto-area mother, told the court she desperately wishes she could still say three words to her 21-year-old son: “Amrit, it’s ready.”
The mom told the court she misses constantly cooking in her kitchen to feed her young son. “Mom, is the chicken and rice ready?” Ms. Rana remembered her son always asking her. “Such an ordinary question. Such an ordinary moment.”
Amritraj Rana consumed a chemical he bought from Mr. Law on Oct. 29, 2022. He was overheard vomiting in the bathroom of his family home, and asked his mother to call an ambulance before he was pronounced dead.
Kenneth Law, man accused of selling toxic substances, pleads guilty to aiding suicides
Mr. Law, wearing a black jacket and khaki pants, listened impassively to these accounts of loss.
When Mr. Mitchell took the witness stand, the Toronto father looked at Mr. Law and challenged him. He told him that he had wrongly chosen to truncate the lives of innumerable young people who may have been on the cusp of recovering from depression and other mental-health conditions.
“You may one day regain your freedom, Mr. Law, but you will never erase the consequences of what you have done,” he said.
Ultimately, he said, Canada needs better systems and law enforcement.
“He’s just a narcissistic psychopath – that’s all,” Mr. Mitchell told reporters outside court. “What I really wanted to focus on is how society deals with people like that.”