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Membership: Medical Implications of Less-Lethal Weapons Expert Committee

Published 21 April 2026

Membership

Information about the members of the Medical Implications of Less Lethal Weapons Expert Committee.

Meeting minutes will be added as they occur.

Chair

• Professor Charles Deakin, Consultant in Cardiac Anaesthesia and Cardiac Intensive Care, University Hospital Southampton

Committee Members (listed alphabetically)

• Mr Duncan Bew, Consultant in Major Trauma and Surgery, King’s College Hospital, London

• Mr Phil Cowburn, Consultant in Emergency Medicine, University Hospitals Bristol & Weston NHS Foundation Trust

• Professor Abi Dymond, Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of Exeter

• Dr Alex J Gorton, Consultant Forensic Physician, Speciality Doctor in Emergency Medicine, Senior Medical Examiner (Wales), President of the Faculty of Forensic & Legal Medicine

• Dr Ian Maconochie, Consultant in Paediatric Emergency Medicine and Professor of Practice Imperial College, London

• Ms Leisa Nichols-Drew, Chartered Forensic Practitioner and Associate Professor in Forensic Science, De Montfort University, Leicester.

Biographies

The MILLWEC Chair’s biography is listed first. The Committee Member biographies are listed in alphabetical order.

Professor Charles Deakin

Charles is a Consultant in Cardiac Anaesthesia and Cardiac Intensive Care at University Hospital Southampton where he was appointed in 1999. He is also Professor of Resuscitation and Pre-hospital Emergency Medicine at the University of Southampton.

He has been involved with pre-hospital care since 1993, having flown with the London Air Ambulance and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance, and is the Divisional Medical Director of South Central Ambulance Service. He is also a member of the NPCC First Aid Clinical Panel and the resuscitation lead for the Joint Royal Colleges Ambulance Liaison Committee (JRCALC) that sets paramedic clinical practice guidelines. He was an author of the recent Royal College of Emergency Guidelines on the management of patients with acute behavioural disturbance and also has a particular interest in cardiac electrophysiology in relation to conducted energy device safety.

Charles is the inaugural Chair of MILLWEC, having been appointed in January 2026.

Mr Duncan Bew

Duncan is a Consultant Trauma Surgeon and Medical Examiner at Kings College Hospital and Honorary Trauma Consultant at St Mary’s Hospital Paddington.

Duncan has extensive expertise in the care of traumatic injuries and in the management of major incidents. He provides education and training in surgery in austere as well as developed countries and is a member of the threatened healthcare systems expert committee at Harvard University. He is widely recognised for his work in violence and injury prevention and has represented at several All Party Parliamentary Groups, Select Committee and Government commissions including Serious Violence. His work led to the formation of the violence reduction units across the UK and he is a prominent supporter of public health interventions to prevent harm.

Duncan is Chairman of the Royal Medical Benevolent fund which supports medical students, doctors and their families faced with hardship. 

Mr Phil Cowburn

Phil is a consultant in Emergency Medicine and Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine working in Bristol. He has been involved in ambulance service medical directorate roles for over 15 years developing advanced clinical practice multi professional teams and is the Medical Advisor to the NHS Resilience Emergency Capabilities Unit. He has extensive experience in multiagency working providing clinical governance to specialist police units regionally and nationally. His special interests include the response to major and complex incidents and he led the team that developed the Ten Second Triage Tool for all emergency service responders. His underlying ethos is putting the patient at the centre of the response.

Professor Abi Dymond

Abi is Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of Exeter where she focuses on issues around use of force, monitoring and accountability in policing and places of detention.  Her book, Electric-shock weapons, TASERS and Policing: Myths and Realities was awarded the Policing Book Prize from the European Society of Criminology Policing Working Group.  She has also worked on a range of other projects in these areas, including those funded by the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, the Economic and Social Research Council, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and London’s Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, Open Society Foundations, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation and various UN agencies, amongst others.

Impact is a large part of Abi’s work. Prior to joining academia, she worked for over ten years for various human rights and international development NGOs, including the Omega Research Foundation, and she currently sits on their Network of Experts group.  She won the ESRC Celebrating Impact Award in 2018 for her work on use of force, received travel costs from Taser International in 2014 to present her research to their Senior Management Team and regularly engages in a number of other impact activities in the UK and internationally, including via membership of the Independent Office for Police Conduct’s External Stakeholder Reference Group. More information about her work can be found here: www.experts.exeter.ac.uk.

Dr Alex J Gorton

Alex qualified from University of Wales College of Medicine in 2002 and has had a varied portfolio career since. Originally training in general surgery he migrated to emergency medicine before spending several years working full time in the private sector as a forensic physician. In that role he has had a number of senior positions including medical director to one of the private providers. Throughout his career he has been passionate about standards and training, and this translated into his role as Assistant Registrar for The Faculty of Forensic & Legal Medicine (FFLM) from 2016 to 2021. He has a solid understanding of legal aspects of medical practice having gained a Master of Laws from Cardiff Law School.

Alex is active in writing national guidance for forensic and legal medicine as well as developing training modules for forensic and emergency trainees alike. He sits on a range of national committees including the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) Clinical Advice Panel, and the BMA Forensic & Secure Environments Committee.

Over the last few years, he has been heavily involved in supporting the NPCC developing a competency framework for assessment of individuals exposed to Conducted Energy Devices, co-written the FFLM Joint Conducted Energy Device Working Group Guidelines, and is the lead facilitator for the approved national training course for clinicians assessing individuals who have been exposed to a conducted energy device.

In addition to his forensic medical roles, he works part time as an Emergency Medicine Middle Grade and as a Senior Medical Examiner in Wales.

Dr Ian Maconochie

Ian works as Paediatric Emergency Consultant at St Mary’s Hospital, setting up the department in 2000. He instigated the setting up of the Association of Paediatric Emergency Medicine for the UK and Ireland (APEM) in 2002 when it was formally recognised, and established training for the UK and European curricula for paediatric emergency training. He is past President of the Research arm of APEM, and for the Paediatric Emergency Research Network UK and Ireland.

He was awarded Professor of Practice, in Paediatric Emergency Medicine at Imperial College, London, the first of its kind in United Kingdom in 2018. He has authored over 300 peer reviewed papers, reports and undertakes reviews for national bodies.

He has been with the Resuscitation Council UK paediatric group as a member from 1992 and was appointed as the Hon. Sec. for thew Resuscitation Council UK in 2019.

He has been a European Resuscitation Council (ERC) Board member and co-chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee for Paediatric, authoring the European Resuscitation Guidelines from 2010 to 2025.

He acted as the International Liaison Council for Resuscitation co-chair for Paediatrics for 10 years, and sat on the Scientific Advisory Group, being elected as Vice Chair of the ILCOR Conflict of Interest Committee and taken over the Chair’s position in 2025.

He has been a Visiting Professor to Queen Margaret Children’s Hospital in Perth, Australia, an Honorary Associate Professor in the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and Visiting Fellow to the Centre of Reviews and Dissemination, University of York. He was also the Registrar of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) 2012-2017. He was most recently (in August 2025) appointed as the Boon Wong Hock Visiting Professor to Singapore. He advises the Youth Justice Board on the management of children and young people in the Secure establishments in England and Wales.

Ms Leisha Nichols-Drew

Leisa commenced her career in forensic science in 2000, undertaking the laboratory examination of crime scene exhibits within offences including homicides, sexual offences, terrorist related and cold case review investigations. Awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2018 to investigate international approaches to knife crime to aid the UK situation. These proactive and reactive recommendations aid prevention and detection within the UK Criminal Justice System, leading to ground breaking research into novel (round-ended) kitchen knives; widely renowned to prevent injuries (accidental, self-harm, violent altercations), reduce the risk of harm, and act as a deterrent to criminal activities. Leisa’s research has been disseminated at conferences around the world, and policy briefs throughout agencies of the United Nations.