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Adele Zeynep Walton woke up groggy on a camping trip in the New Forest only to be confronted by her parents’ car rushing across the site. At first, she thought her mum and dad were just popping in, but the look on her mum’s face told her something terrible had happened. It was her younger sister, Aimee, who had died. Aimee, just 21, was found dead in a hotel room in Berkshire in what was ruled an apparent suicide. Adele recalls the numb shock and devastation that followed: sitting together with her family, crying and trying to process the loss.
In the weeks after Aimee’s death in October 2022, the family’s grief turned to anger when the police revealed she’d been visiting a pro-suicide website. This site, where members encourage each other to kill themselves, was believed to be the source of the poison Aimee used to end her life. The police suspect a man named Kenneth Law, linked to at least 88 deaths in the UK, supplied the toxin. Law is currently awaiting trial in Canada for murder and assisting suicide. More distressingly, Aimee wasn’t alone at her death; she was with a man she met through the site. Although he was initially arrested on suspicion of assisting suicide, the police dropped the investigation against him. Adele is now demanding a public inquiry into this website and wants the inquest into Aimee’s death, delayed until after Law’s trial, to acknowledge the crucial role of online harm.
Adele describes feeling sickened by what her sister was exposed to online. The website offered forums where people exchanged methods, discussed buying poisons like it was an everyday transaction, and even used euphemisms like "catching the bus" to mean suicide. For Adele, it's hard to call Aimee’s death a simple suicide; she believes Aimee was groomed and coerced into making that decision, suggesting it was more an assisted suicide, which is illegal. Her story is sadly not unique. A BBC investigation connected the same website to at least 50 deaths, and it’s under scrutiny by the National Crime Agency. Last year, a 17-year-old from Southampton also took poison from the same source after visiting the site. The Molly Rose Foundation, named after a girl who took her own life aged 14 after viewing self-harm content, reports that the toxin is linked to over 130 deaths in the UK since 2019.
Despite government efforts to restrict access under the Online Safety Act, the site remains accessible in the UK through alternative domain names. Ofcom, the regulator, admits the issue isn’t fully resolved, with loopholes allowing continued access. Adele points out that while this site is the most notorious, many others like it exist, and coroners have raised concerns to government departments dozens of times since 2019.
Aimee’s personal story adds a heartbreaking dimension. Growing up in Southampton with her family, she was close to her sister Adele and loved dancing, skateboarding, and computer games. However, socially she struggled and was diagnosed with OCD at 14, though she never fully engaged with therapy. There are suspicions she was autistic but never diagnosed. Efforts to support her, including encouraging her to spend time with Adele's friends, were unsuccessful as Aimee resisted being seen as vulnerable.
Her isolation deepened during the Covid lockdowns when she mostly connected with people online. In September 2021, she started university studying music technology but quit within weeks and broke up with her boyfriend, who had been a source of support. After that, Aimee’s mental health declined rapidly. She began running away from home for long periods, leaving her family uncertain about her whereabouts or how she supported herself. Despite their best efforts, her parents couldn't get her the help she desperately needed.
Now, Adele channels her pain into activism and has written a book called "Logging Off: The Human Cost Of Our Digital World," aiming to expose the dangers of online harm and push for stricter measures to protect vulnerable people like her sister. She continues to call for justice and hopes that Aimee’s tragic story will not be forgotten or repeated.
