Presentation to a meeting at the House of Commons hosted by Fabian Hamilton MP, 22 January 2020.
By Paul McKeigue
I’ll start by introducing myself. I trained as a doctor, and then as an epidemiologist and public health specialist. My expertise includes the investigation of scientific fraud, and the investigation of mass casualty incidents. I first started studying the alleged chemical attacks in Syria around 2015. That led to me discovering colleagues like Professor Tim Hayward at my own university, who shared my interest in investigating the stories that we were hearing from Syria. People sometimes ask me why I am doing this, in the face of flak directed at us. One reason is that I was brought up to believe in parliamentary government. As children each of us, at the age of eleven or twelve, was taken to a debate at the House of Commons. We were told that this was something special about our system of government. One of my concerns in relation to the alleged chemical attacks in Syria has been that Parliament has been misled. On the 14th April 2018, the UK had joined the US and France in a missile attack, without recalling Parliament for a vote. Two days later, Theresa May in the House of Commons responded to Sir Edward Leigh MP, who had apparently expressed doubts.
Portcullis House Meeting on 22 Jan 2020 OPCW Douma transcript [Final for Release]
Tim Hayward 