About

On 14th September 2023 our much loved daughter and sister Hannah took her own life at the age of 22 with a poison she ordered from a supplier in Malaysia.

Hannah had been diagnosed aged 17 with autism and struggled with her mental health. At the age of 15 she was admitted to a secure mental health hospital in Tooting but over the period 2017 until 2022 she was an inpatient at a further five different mental health hospitals, ranging from Stafford, Roehampton, Blandford Forum, Hayes Grove and Chertsey.

But in her last couple of years she was being looked after by an excellent care provider Brookhaven Care and had a working cocker spaniel dog Milo who she adored.

Through the process of her inquest, we learned that the poison Hannah had used was the same poison that Kenneth Law had sold to vulnerable people globally via a suicide forum and has been linked to at least 133 deaths in the UK. Though we still don't know how Hannah came to know of this poison and that it has legitimate uses, which she used to justify her purchase, we do know that since 2020 Coroners have raised at least 19 separate Prevention of Future Death (PFD) Reports to highlight the risks and to ask for greater protections to be implemented.

But despite Coroners best efforts, there are still failings :

• the suicide forum still exists online,
• the poison is regulated under the Poisons Act but the purpose of this legislation is for anti-terrorism, has no role in suicide prevention and only applies to the UK,
• there are no safeguards preventing this poison from being ordered from overseas,
• there are no accurate statistics of the deaths associated with this poison,
• ambulance crews are not trained to recognise the symptoms of this poison and do not carry the antidote.

Along side other families we have joined the Molly Rose Foundation's lived experience group "Families and Survivors To Prevent Online Suicide Harms."

With the Molly Rose Foundation's support, we are campaigning for positive change to help protect and save lives of future vulnerable people such as Hannah and the loved ones of the other members of the group.

Our family would really appreciate your support in raising funds for the Molly Rose Foundation and in so doing be a part of helping to protect all our young people from the harms online.

Thank you for your support and reading Hannah's story.

Matt & Pete Aitken