Summary
Here is a summary of the day’s main developments:
- The inquiry’s terms of reference should be extended to consider the contribution of “institutional racism”, a lawyer has said. Imran Khan QC, who represented the family of Stephen Lawrence, said the Grenfell inquiry should follow in the footsteps of the MacPherson inquiry into Stephen’s death in addressing the issue. He said it should be examined whether the council and tenant management association were guilty of institutional racism and issues of religion and class should also be considered.
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The smoke ventilation system at Grenfell Tower was reported to have failed eight days before the fatal blaze. In written evidence to the inquiry, Martin Booth, the managing director of PSB, which made the system, said a proposal to fix the system - meant to extract smoke from lobbies outside flats in the event of a fire - for £1,800 was ignored.
- Grenfell Tower was rendered a “death trap” by institutional and societal indifference, the inquiry has heard. Danny Friedman QC, representing bereaved, survivors and relatives said Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea council and the tenant management organisation created the death trap “and they did so using public funds”.
- Contractors are guilty of an “inhumane” failure to engage with the inquiry, Friedman’s colleague Stephanie Barwise QC said. She said Rydon, the main contractor under a design and build contract, was “being obtuse” in arguing that it was not responsible for critical decisions. while subcontractor CEP’s position that it cannot participate in the inquiry until it has full disclosure was “demonstrably untenable and disingenuous”.
- Grenfell Tower will be released as a crime scene in July or August, the Met police said. Jeremy Johnson QC, representing the force, said the criminal investigation into the fire was “unprecedented and extremely demanding” but progressing in accordance with intended timescales.
- London Fire Brigade (LFB) has defended its stay and put policy on the night of the fire. It has faced criticism for keeping the policy in place for so long (until 2.47am) but in a written submission it said the inquiry should consider whether immediate evacuation of the block was ever feasible, given the way it was designed with only one staircase, had no fire alarm and had no system for communicating an evacuation alert.
Khan concludes, addressing the chair, saying you cannot have left the inquiry over the previous hearings not considering race to be a significant factor.
The focus on the construction etc will not explain why “these particular people died”, he says.
That ends the day’s proceedings with Martin Moore-Bick offering no comments on Khan’s statement.
In the published firefighters’ statements, residents from BME communities are described by their ethnicity and “stereotypically” at that, says Khan.
In one statement, a resident is described as a “foreigner”, which “suggests unconscious or subconscious racism”, he says. Khan asks:
Did race or religion play any part in the procedure and operation of the fire service on that night? Did race or religion affect how the LFB communicated with residents?
He refers to relatives denied visas to come to the UK.
He says RKBC created a “hostile environment” which really means a “racist environment”.
Khan says one family was treated worse than most - the Naqshbandi family, originally from Afghanistan, who were treated as fraudsters.
Imran Khan QC says:
The question that we might want to ask and have answered is whether RBKC (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea council) and TMO (tenant management association) and its associates were guilty of institutional racism.
He asks whether the fact that so many of those who lived in Grenfell Tower were BAME households might be a product of “ethnic or social cleansing”.
There is an over concentration of BME families in the cities’ most deprived neighbourhoods, says Khan.
He refers to a council investigation into mother-of-five Sakina Afrasehabi, 65, who was partially sighted and could not walk unaided, yet was placed on the 18th floor of Grenfell Tower. She was investigated for allegedly wrongly trying to jump the housing list. He says she was treated like a criminal without reason, ended up in Grenfell Tower as a result and ultimately dead.
Our clients want to know why those who died were predominately non-white.
Updated
Inquiry 'should be expanded to consider institutional racism'
Imran Khan QC says the terms of reference for the Grenfell Inquiry did not include race, religion and social class and require amendment.
He urges Martin Moore-Bick to recommend to the home secretary (the only one who can change the terms) a change to the terms of reference to examine whether race, religion and social class played any part in the events surrounding the fire on 14 June last year.
We hope you will agree it is a grave issue ...and a perfectly proper one to be considered by a judge-led inquiry. It is exactly what Sir William Macpherson did in the Stephen Lawrence inquiry.
He says if that does not happen, his clients will be in exactly the same position as the Lawrence family prior to the Macpherson inquiry and “we will be putting at risk the lives of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands from black and ethnic minority communities”.
He says the poor and BME community were not the “core constitution” of the local council.
We might ask if this was a product of deliberate social cleansing or segregation ... or was it pure chance and coincidence, pure bad luck for those who die.
Khan says it should be examined whether their deaths were due to institutional racism.
Imran Khan QC representing the bereaved, survivors and relatives, begins with a series of questions.
Does the colour of a person’s skin in this country matter? ...In short does it affect your life chances?
He says it affects whether you get a decent education, whether you are likely to be stopped and searched by police “and in the context of this inquiry whether you live or die”.
Peter Weatherby QC says both Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea council and the tenant management organisation have blamed “defective regulations” and contractors.
Can it really be true, he asks, that it is “all someone else’s fault”?
He runs through the various private companies involved with different aspects of the building.
He says that Arconic, the supplier of the panels used the remarkable phrase that the panels “did not render inevitable the catastrophe that ensued”.
Weatherby ends by saying his clients don’t want to hear “meaningless condolences”.
There will be a break and then Imran Khan QC will address the inquiry.
The Fire Officers Association has told the inquiry about the “life changing consequences for many of the firefighters who attended the scene of the fire that night”.
It denied the claim in Dr Barbara Lane’s expert report that “the fire service ceased committing crews above Level 04 at 03:39” and said crews did attempt rescue operations above Level 4 after this time.
It said:
The inquiry must bear in mind the enormous pressures and challenges they faced in attempting to deal with what was a wholly unprecedented and wholly unanticipated set of circumstances. Equally, the Inquiry must guard against assessing the actions of such firefighters with the benefit of hindsight.
Pete Weatherby QC, representing survivors and residents, pointed out that as early as 1999 the House of Commons regional affairs committee had written to local authorities warning them about the dangers of external cladding on high rise towers.
As recently as early last year, the London Fire Brigade (LFB) wrote to Kensington and Chelsea council in the aftermath of the fire at Shepherds Court in April 2017 warning that cladding had an impact on fire safety measures.
The ‘stay put’ advice given by the LFB should have been abandoned earlier than it was, Weatherby stressed.
As early as 01.08am, the residents at flat 26 [above where the fire broke out] said their flat was on fire. By 01.12am, flames were licking up the building and the incident commander said the cladding was burning ‘like magnesium’, sparking and spitting.
Weatherby names some of the victims of the fire whose surviving relatives want to know why stay put was not abandoned earlier.
He moves on to the issue of candour.
This is a public search for the truth. It’s not a game of cat or mouse.
He calls on all core participants to set out their position in their opening statements, including the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Weatherby says a number of ministers batted away concerns after the 2009 Lakanal House fire.
He calls on them to explain why “you failed to rectify this known problem” even after Lakanal. Why did they not regulate for a more robust testing regime?
Peter Weatherby QC says after the 2009 Lakanal House fire in Camberwell, the coroner raised the issue of stay put where compartmentation fails.
Peter Weatherby QC asks why it took so long to abandon stay put.
He says, in his expert report published yesterday, Prof José Torero said the case for abandoning stay put emerged as soon as 1.05am.
Referring to the video shown at the inquiry yesterday, he says between 1.16am and 1.20am we can clearly hear someone shouting at people to “Get out”.
Weatherby says Dr Barbara Lane found the stay put was “failing” by 1.15am and “untenable” by 1.26am.
By 1.18am there was smoke in lobbies on different floors, showing compartmentation had failed, Lane found, says Weatherby.
The lawyer says:
It’s clear from what we know now that it [stay put] should have been under urgent serious consideration almost from the outset.
Smoke began to enter the stairways from about 1.40am, says Weatherby, asking whether abandoning stay put earlier would have had a significant impact. He says:
If evacuation had been ordered at an early stage, the rescue of many more and even all of the residents was possible.
Weatherby says a letter sent by LFB to councils in London before Grenfell shows that it was well aware that cladding raised the fire spread risk.
He says the brigade should have known about the potential for “compartmentation breach” as well as other facts relating to the building such as the fact that there was one staircase.
He suggests an absence of contingency planning may have contributed to the “failure” to abandon stay put until later on the night of the fire.
Referring to the fire assessment by Carl Stokes, he says it referred to the cladding as “fire-rated”. Weatherby describes this as “inaccurate”.
The lawyer says the refurbishment had “seriously compromised” the conditions for stay put.
Peter Weatherby QC says he won’t add much to what’s already been said about the refurbishment and the cladding.
But he said his clients support the calls for an interim recommendation that “nothing less than A1” products should be used on insulation and rainscreens on new and existing buildings over 18m tall.
However, he warns that the banning of flammable materials is “not a panacea”.
He says the LFB (London fire brigade) accepted - in September - that stay put is not an acceptable policy in high-rise buildings with flammable cladding and have changed it.
But he says there is a complete lack of accountability for LFB’s actions on the night of the fire. Although high-rise fires were rare before 2017, they had occurred, says Weatherby.
Some of these previous fires were cladding fires, some did involve fire re-entering the building..some did involved similar materials.
Peter Weatherby QC says the inquiry requires clear thinking and transparency as well as the full involvement of those affected.
He says there must be “candour” by those bearing responsibility for public safety. Contractors must “come clean” as they were working on a public project.
The time for candour is now, the opportunity is your opening statements ...you should tell us all what your role was, what you did and what you should have done ...This is the time to assist the chair by identifying what happened and what should have happened.
It is not the time for “smoke and mirrors”, says Weatherby.
Proceedings have been resumed. Its Peter Weatherby QC on behalf of bereaved, survivors and relatives now.
He says the seven days of commemoration hearings taught people about how communities are formed “and destroyed”.
He describes Grenfell as a “decent, tolerant, place” inhabited by people who deserved to be treated better.
The landlord of Grenfell Tower which oversaw the recladding of the building in combustible panels has said it will be up to the public inquiry to find out why this happened.
In its opening statement, Kensington and Chelsea Tenants Management Organisation said “a whole range of technical and professional bodies, including those with specific responsibility for building control and fire safety” knew what it was doing. It said:
Why combustible cladding was used at Grenfell Tower is something this inquiry will have to consider
KCTMO accepts it had “a central role” and should come under great scrutiny, but said the cladding was originally selected by the architect, Studio E, and was shown to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea who had made it a condition of the grant of planning permission.
In a six-page submission to the inquiry it explained that while it was the client on the refurbishment multiple other organisations were involved and it detailed the roles of the contractor, cost consultant, fire consultant, the architect, landscape architect, fire testing company, building control officers and fire door manufacturers.
It also said it is “deeply sorry for these terrible events and extends its sincere condolences and sympathy to the bereaved, survivors and residents”.
It added:
No words can express the feelings of sorrow felt by all staff associated with TMO for what occurred at Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017.
Summary
Here is a summary of the morning’s main developments:
-
The smoke ventilation system at Grenfell Tower was reported to have failed eight days before the fatal blaze. In written evidence to the inquiry, Martin Booth, the managing director of PSB, which made the system, said a proposal to fix the system - meant to extract smoke from lobbies outside flats in the event of a fire - for £1,800 was ignored.
- Grenfell Tower was rendered a “death trap” by institutional and societal indifference, the inquiry has heard. Danny Friedman QC, representing bereaved, survivors and relatives said Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea council and the tenant management organisation created the death trap “and they did so using public funds”.
- Contractors are guilty of an “inhumane” failure to engage with the inquiry, Friedman’s colleague Stephanie Barwise QC said. She said Rydon, the main contractor under a design and build contract, was “being obtuse” in arguing that it was not responsible for critical decisions. while subcontractor CEP’s position that it cannot participate in the inquiry until it has full disclosure was “demonstrably untenable and disingenuous”.
- Grenfell Tower will be released as a crime scene in July or August, the Met police said. Jeremy Johnson QC, representing the force, said the criminal investigation into the fire was “unprecedented and extremely demanding” but progressing in accordance with intended timescales.
- London Fire Brigade (LFB) has defended its stay and put policy on the night of the fire. It has faced criticism for keeping the policy in place for so long (until 2.47am) but in a written submission it said the inquiry should consider whether immediate evacuation of the block was ever feasible, given the way it was designed with only one staircase, had no fire alarm and had no system for communicating an evacuation alert.
The inquiry will now break for lunch until 2pm.
Stein calls the refurbishment “appallingly shoddy”.
Grenfell Tower was turned “from a basically safe vertical village to a combustible death trap”.
He says there was shock when the [Dame Judith] Hackitt review did not call for a ban on combustible materials. The Royal Institute of British Architects has called for such a ban, he says.
Stein says that while the government indicated in parliament it would look into such a ban, the housing minister wrote to social housing providers last month saying they should replace cladding but with the option that it could be of a class that is combustible.
He says that Hackitt has since called for a ban.
Our clients want to ensure that other communities do not have to live in fear in their homes ..
Stein says his clients want the chair to order a ban on cladding of standard A2 or below.
He also asks the chair to order that the “industry-heavy” composition of the Building Regulations Advisory Committee be radically changed to include lay people.
Referring to the manufacturer of the rainscreen, Arconic, and its claim in its opening statement that it was but a “contributing factor”, Sam Stein QC asks whether the company watched yesterday the video of the fire spreading and was subsequently embarrassed by that claim.
Stein says that while there are questions about the strategy of the firefighters, they were faced with a huge task and it would be a “travesty” if any contractors and subcontractors tried to hide behind any failures of the emergency services.
Sam Stein QC, representing another group of survivors and residents, told the inquiry that Exova Warrington, the fire safety consultants used in the refurbishment, had advised that there would be “no adverse impact” on the spread of fire by the refurbishment of the tower. How could that be so, he asked?
The TMO, he continued, managed 10,000 homes yet seems to be waiting for the inquiry to tell it why the tower was wrapped in combustible material.
LFB defends 'stay and put'
The London Fire Brigade has said it always put the residents of Grenfell Tower first when making choices balancing their safety with that of firefighters and has questioned whether it was ever feasible to order an evacuation of the tower.
In a submission to the public inquiry, it described how incident commanders and other decision makers were repeatedly required to make instantaneous choices and that it “has thus far found no evidence of any occasions when that balance was not struck in favour of the residents of Grenfell Tower despite the appalling challenges which LFB personnel were required to face”.
The brigade has faced criticism that it allowed the stay put policy to remain in place too long on the night of the fire meaning that people perished in flats that were supposed to be a safe haven.
The stay put policy failed at 1.23am, according to an expert to the inquiry Dr Barbara Lane. But it was only changed to evacuation at 2.47am by which time 107 people were still inside, of whom only 36 got out.
But the LFB has said the inquiry should consider whether immediate evacuation of the block was ever feasible, given the way it was designed with only one staircase, had no fire alarm and had no system for communicating an evacuation alert. It also said its 999 call handlers faced an “appalling dilemma” when advising people whether to stay or flee and that it received more calls requiring fire survival guidance from residents within Grenfell Tower on the night of the fire than the total number of such calls in the previous ten years from the whole of London.
It also questioned whether it in the public interest for it to plan to fight fires in buildings such as Grenfell Tower based on the assumption that their design is unsafe.
In a statement to the inquiry, it asked whether it should “develop new high rise fire and rescue policy and capabilities, and receive the appropriate associated funding, on the express assumption that buildings [are] … constructed so as to render them inherently unsafe in the event of a fire?”
It said:
The LFB anticipates that the Inquiry will wish to consider the extent to which fire services should be expected to mitigate ‘fire events’ in high rise residential buildings under the current regulatory regime, which result from substantial non-compliance with fire safety measures of the kind which may have been present in Grenfell Tower.
Stein says all communications between the Tenant Management Organisation, Rydon, the main contractor under a design and build contract, and Exova, which carried out fire safety tests, should be released.
He says Exova have not even provided an opening statement to the inquiry and insulation manufacturer Celotex have taken no responsibility for the tower being clad in flammable material.
Stein says:
Remember that the [insulation manufacturer] Celotex director Rob Warren made clear on the company website that they were working inside government to influence policy and regulation of the insulation industry.
He questions whether the failure to address the issue of dangerous cladding was a result of incompetence or of industry becoming too close to government.
Stein quotes residents saying they did not believe the cladding would be combustible.
One of those he quotes is Ms Choucair, who lost six members of her family, who “assumed the council would comply with all regulations”.
Stein refers to how fire-resistant zinc cladding approved by residents of Grenfell Tower was replaced in the refurbishment contract with cheaper aluminium panels to save money.
He quotes another resident Alejandro Serrano:
If you put your hand under the outside lip of the window sill you could feel wind and rain coming in ... I now understand it was one of the ways the fire came in the flat.
Now we hear from Sam Stein QC representing more bereaved, survivors and relatives.
He says the tragedy was “wholly avoidable”.
He reads a statement from survivor Marcio Gomes praising the individual firefighters, but condemning those in charge for the stay and put advice which he blames for the death of his son. Logan, who was stillborn after Marcio and his wife Andreia escaped the block.
The delay in telling us to evacuate nearly killed us and it did kill my baby son, I have no doubt of that.
Friedman concludes with a very powerful broadside at those who failed to show concern for the residents:
In the end, the fire is an example writ large of how inequalities of political, legal and economic power, can end up killing people. Sir, I don’t now need to tell you that this was a community that was wealthy in many ways. We contend that you will see that the greatest poverty they suffered was the poverty of how they were regarded and treated - not who they really were.
Their poverty – in this sense - lay in the lack of concern by local and central government, contractors predisposed against regulations and red-tape, and too much of society as a whole. It is that failure of human accounting, an indifference, both institutional and societal, that renders more explicable the worst housing fire disaster in modern British history.
Now Friedman is talking about the 2016 blogpost by Edward Daffarn, resident of flat 134, and a previous long term resident of the area, Francis O’Connor, under the auspices of the Grenfell Action group, in which they wrote:
It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that… only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord, the KCTMO, and bring an end to the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation that they inflict upon their tenants and leaseholders...
Unfortunately, the Grenfell Action Group have reached the conclusion that only an incident that results in serious loss of life of KCTMO residents will allow the external scrutiny to occur that will shine a light on the practices that characterise the malign governance of this non-functioning organisation.
It is our conviction that a serious fire in a tower block or similar high density residential property is the most likely reason that those who wield power at the KCTMO will be found out and brought to justice!
Friedman says one of his clients is Daffarn, who is present at the inquiry today.
If he and others sought to speak truth to power, they did so because as you will hear, relevant legal remedies available to residents in social housing are simply not effective in this country
He says that residents cannot compel remedial works when it comes to safety in the absence of death or injury and, even, if they could they would need to obtain legal funding and be granted permission to be heard, meaning it would be unachievable.
Friedman goes on to the control room that answered the emergency calls. He says:
The overriding conclusion to be derived from the 999 transcripts that we have seen is that the control room was deprived of essential operational information about the drama and scale of events unfolding on the ground, leaving the operators manifestly ignorant about the advice they were giving, but also unable to sufficiently react to the clear information that they were being given from the residents that smoke and fire had penetrated much of the building in minutes.
Finally, he says the inquiry must examine command, control and co-ordination.
There was a considerable lack of organisation in the first 90 minutes, which resulted in the two features of the night, so fatal to the residents: (1) the maintenance of stay put, when it should have been amended or withdrawn, and (2) the hindering of evacuation because of the over-deployment of people and equipment into the stairwell.
Friedman says operational matters relating to London Fire Brigade to be investigated by the inquiry include:
(1) the failure to appreciate the futility of firefighting within the early window of opportunity for evacuation;
(2) the real time appreciation by firefighters of various ranks (and staff in the control room) that stay put advice was untenable;
(3) the haphazard extent to which the narrow staircase was crowded by firefighter deployments and equipment that obstructed effective evacuation (policy specifically warns against congestion);
(4) how hoses and other pieces of equipment kept fire doors to the lobby open and so increased the spread of smoke in the stairwell;
(5) the acute and multiple failure of communication at various junctures between the control room, the command units, the firefighting bridgehead and the deployed and returning units of personnel that went up and down the staircase ;
(6) it seems to us (a view shared by a number of fire fighter witnesses) that there was very rudimentary and wholly inadequate local familiarisation knowledge of the Tower itself.
He says there are also a range of equipment issues, including breathing apparatus, “flash” masks, which can assist the breathing of evacuees, and the feasibility or otherwise of helicopters.
Danny Friedman QC is resuming, turning to the firefighters’ response.
He says:
It was a fire beyond their training, or indeed the LFB’s operational contemplation and we say it should not have been.
Friedman describes “a violation of the state’s responsibility to have training and policy in place that is fit for responding to foreseeable risks to life in cladding fires of this nature”.
He says the fundamental question is:
Did the LFB waste limited temporal and spatial opportunities in trying to fight a fire that could not be fought, rather than immediately prioritising evacuation to save lives?
He says a range of firefighter witnesses, as well as Dr Lane, have emphatically queried the logic of maintaining the stay put advice up to 2:47am.
Both the expert and the non-expert can view the video from yesterday and reflect on the fact that this was not a fire to tell people to stay put in.
Here is our latest news story based on this morning’s proceedings so far:
Stephanie Barwise QC says Rydon, the main contractor under a design and build contract, is “being obtuse” in arguing that it was not responsible for critical decisions.
She also criticises CEP, one of Rydon’s subcontractors, for its claim that it cannot participate in the inquiry until it has full disclosure calling it “demonstrably untenable and disingenuous”. She says:
Despite their words of condolence to the victims, these corporates have no desire to assist this inquiry, even though their participation could save lives in the immediate future. The inability to produce a basic account of how, if at all, they considered
Grenfell Tower complied with the building regulations is itself indicative of a culture of non-compliance, with Dr Lane has identified.
The corporates’ silence deprives the families of the degree of resolution and understanding to which they are entitled, and has only served to increase their pain and uncertainty. It is inhumane to remain silent when so many seek understanding and answers: answers which are within the corporates’ gift.
There will now be a short break.
Failure of smoke ventilations system 'ignored before fire'
The smoke ventilation system at Grenfell Tower was reported to have failed just eight days before the fatal blaze claimed 71 lives but a proposal to fix it for £1,800 plus VAT was ignored, the public inquiry has heard.
The system was meant to extract smoke from lobbies outside flats in the event of a fire and its failure has been identified by experts to the inquiry as a factor in the escape routes from the building filling with thick black smoke that may have prevented evacuation and rescue. However it was not designed to clear smoke from multiple floors at once.
Martin Booth, managing director of PSB which made the system, told the inquiry that it received a request for help with the failure on 6 June 2017 after Rydon, the main contractor on the refurbishment of the building, were alerted to the fact the automatic opening vents were not working.
The email had come from an aftercare administrator at JS Wright, the company which installed the system.
Booth said in a written statement:
It was stated that JS Wright would like to arrange an appointment for a PSB engineer and an engineer from Direct Control Solutions to attend to investigate and resolve any issues,. On 12 June 2017 at 15.52 a response was sent. The proposed cost was £1,800 + VAT. No response was received and no instructions were received by PSB or Witt & Son UK to attend the Grenfell Tower site to investigate the potential fault report.
Stephanie Barwise QC says:
[The designer] would be well aware of the risks posed by combustible cladding and indeed precisely the scenario which occurred at Grenfell tower.
She says the designer “armed with the knowledge” that if fire reached the cladding it could result in “a catastrophic multi-storey fire” should have favoured limited combustibility panels.
Barwise says that in phase two of the inquiry she will submit that in order to comply with building regulations, the designer was “required to use limited combustibility cladding panels”.
She goes on:
It is clear that the cladding system is non-compliant since the insulation does not comply...
The fact that, as Dr Lane concludes, the cladding of Grenfell Tower clearly did not adequately resist the spread of flame and on the contrary promoted it, is also sufficient to show non-compliance together with the absence of proof of compliance.
Barwise says that that CS Stokes, which carried out the last fire risk assessment before the blaze, concluded that there was only a risk of “slight harm” in the event of a fire.
Slight harm was defined as unlikely to result in serious injury or death of any occupant. This starkly contrasts with Dr Lane’s analysis that The building envelope created an intolerable risk on the night of the fire resulting in extreme harm.
Barwise says the construction industry has known for some time that cladding panels incorporating polymeric materials such as polyethylene are highly combustible because of previous fires.
Since the turn of the century, both internationally and in the UK, fires involving external cladding systems have become almost the archetypal form of mass fire disaster.
This fact put construction and fire engineering professionals on notice of the imperative to develop their risk assessment systems accordingly; and also ought to have informed fire brigade contingency planning. Industry openly acknowledges that polyethylene equates to petrol.
She adds that the the very specific danger of using polymeric materials such as polyethylene near materials such as UPVC window surrounds was “known certainly to government”.
She highlights building regulations which require buildings to be constructed so as to inhibit the spread of fire.
Stephanie Barwise QC says:
Dr Lane found no effective cavity barriers around the windows, and no cavity barriers between the cladding and its junctions with compartment walls and floors. Nor were there cavity barriers within the cladding rails either within the 14 columns or at window edges, nor at the top of the cladding where it joins the crown of the tower, thereby creating further routes to fire spread. The combination of these highly combustible materials and omissions of cavity barriers amounts to a collection of catastrophic failures in construction safety.
She also refers to Prof Jose Torero’s finding that as debris fell from the crown of the tower it ignited fires by landing on ledges.
This explains some of the otherwise inexplicable 999 calls reporting fires within flats on the upper floors very early on in the evening.
Barwise says that Grenfell was constructed of concrete but covered by polyethylene cladding known within the construction industry as “petrol”.
More significant documents have just been published on the inquiry’s website:
Core participant opening statements have been added to the website. We are making some edits to make the evidence page simpler to navigate, so for now it's easiest to view them from here: https://t.co/Gv53KpjiB8
— Grenfell Inquiry (@grenfellinquiry) June 5, 2018
Now it is the turn of Friedman’s colleague Stephanie Barwise QC to address the inquiry. She will focus on the cladding and “it’s obvious non-compliance”.
She says the blaze “started as and should have remained a kitchen fire” but became an inferno.
Barwise says five out of six of the layers of protection against fire failed.
On the failures of the cladding, Barwise says all the experts whose reports were published yesterday agree:
All hold the cladding, as a system, responsible for the incredibly rapid spread of a fire which ultimately engulfed the building.
All of the insulation was supposed to be of limited combustibility but Dr Barbara Lane found that none of it was.
Insulation was “of the lowest class ...and absolutely predisposed to allow the fire spread”.
Updated
Friedman says this is just “a thumb nail sketch ...but I am sure that the surviving community want it – in your words – to be laid bare”.
He goes on:
Allowing the stories of the fire to be told, and to chronicle them yourself in due course, is what has begun to make this inquiry a cultural event and not just a technical or legal one.
Friedman says:
Grenfell is also a story of disempowerment through withholding knowledge; including technical knowledge, and not enough people in society being included in conversations about what risks this country should be prepared to tolerate.
Friedman talks about Paulos Tekle and Genet Shawo’s family at flat 153 on the 18th floor. He says firefighters reached them, perhaps at 2.10am .
He says
Before that other friends had got out and told Paulos to do the same, but the operators told him to stay put. Despite these telephone calls and views from the outside to indicate that the floor was not safe and was deteriorating, the firefighters also told Paulos to stay in the flat; they say reflecting a judgment that they could not get the people on the floor, down the stairwell safely.
Well if that was their judgment, Firefighters on a search and rescue deployment, you can at least know that the inquiry should investigate what should, or could, have happened? No one went back to get them straightway. Knowing that the journey was only going to become more perilous later, no relay was set up from the bridgehead and up the stairs to try to shepherd them down.
He says around 3am they were finally told to get out “by any means necessary. When the family finally made the trip, you will hear that Isaac (the five-year old son) was lost in the dire conditions of the stairwell.”
Friedman continues talking about the fate of many of the residents:
Mariem Elgwahry, having already left flat 196, reported at 1.30am that multiple families had migrated to the top floors, that the roof doors would not open, and that contrary to the operator’s suggestion, her own flat was already on fire.
She was talking about flat 196 - 18 floors up on the same East column of the building where the fire was first reported half an hour earlier, at 12.56am. Now at 1.30am, she is telling the authorities about what is going on inside; and we have seen the video yesterday of what was going on outside.
He tells the chair:
You have been the recipient of so many unforgettable accounts of how people love one another.
Friedman calls the commemoration hearings that took place over the first seven days of the inquiry “raw, rawer perhaps than any of us who were not there that night, and who asked you to do this, could ever have contemplated”.
He goes on:
These were not just very articulate lessons in love, they were reference points for you to connect names to floors and flats in the coming weeks.
He begins talking about some of the victims.
Addressing the chair Martin Moore-Bick, he says:
You now know that Rania Ibrahim, a Muslim woman of great faith, died in flat 203 on floor 23 with her two young children, Fethia and Hania. You know that Hesham Rahman died on the same floor, Flat 204, and you will hear that he made repeated 999 calls, which made it clear that he could not walk the stairs alone...
You already know that there were a number of elderly people who lived on these higher floors, often with mobility issues, which gave rise to specific legal duties to protect, who could not have escaped without assistance. Equally you can know that many of their older children stayed with their parents, when they might have saved themselves.
Danny Friedman QC says that “trust in government, industry and firefighting requires restoration”.
He continues:
This is an opening, and therefore it is responsible for us to wait for certain evidence to be assessed; but there are also some features of the building works that were so obviously dangerous, reprehensible and contrary to the regulations that it would be irresponsible not to indicate where we stand now.
On the firefighting response, he says:
There are instances of deep gratitude and respect for what was done that night. But solace in the heroism of individual firefighters is not a route to learning lessons that sorely need to be learnt. The response failed to realise quickly enough that this was a fire that could not be fought and required an evacuation that could not be delayed. So now is the time for courageous and fully informed examination as to how things could have been done differently.
Friedman says:
Ill fares the land that left these people to be so exposed to such trauma and death in such a way. Why this was so; and what is to be done, are the questions that bring us together.
Now we have Danny Friedman QC on behalf of bereaved, survivors, and relatives.
He begins with a damning indictment of how such an atrocity was allowed to happen.
The bereaved and surviving people of Grenfell Tower come to this Inquiry in a calm rage. The basic facts are stark. In the second decade of 21st century London, governed by a regulatory framework designed to ensure fire safety, a local authority instigated and oversaw the refurbishment of a social housing high rise tower block, in such a way as to render it a death trap.
RBKC and the TMO did this, and they did so using public funds, paid to an array of professionals, contractors and sub-contractors, none of whom have yet accepted any responsibility for their part in what happened. Residents – some of the people commemorated last fortnight, and some of the people sitting here today – told them this could happen. But they were fobbed off. Certainly not treated as equals; and denied access to the information that they could have used to save themselves; or to save others.
He says those who escaped “owe their lives primarily to chance, rather than risk assessment and contingency planning by either the council or the fire brigade”.
The counsel for the Metropolitan police says the force will shortly provide a statement detailing its response on the night of the fire.
Jeremy Johnson says the criminal investigation is proceeding in accordance with the timetable previously detailed.
It is anticipated that Grenfell Tower will be released as a crime scene in July or August this year.
He says the victims will be kept abreast of the progress of the criminal investigation but public statements will not be made.
The magnitude of the police investigation is unprecedented.
Johnson said nothing has been kept back from core participants for fear of prejudicing the investigation.
There will be a Met police presence at the inquiry throughout the hearings.
Jeremy Johnson QC, representing the Met, says the force is committed to supporting the inquiry while continuing its own “thorough investigation” into all possible charges.
We will continue to provide material to the hearing ...we do not consider that it would be appropriate for us to ask questions during the inquiry ...for the purpose of the criminal investigation.
Updated
Proceedings have begun and first up is Jeremy Johnson QC for the Met, who says his opening will be very short.
Here are some of the front pages of today’s papers which featured coverage of Richard Millet’s opening statement at the Grenfell Inquiry. (I have not included a picture of the Telegraph front page which has the headline “Why weren’t they told to get out?” because it features an image of the tower alight which some may find disturbing but, if you wish, you can see it here):
Tuesday’s GUARDIAN: “Litany of fire safety failures revealed at Grenfell inquiry” #bbcpapers #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/OprPihaR3G
— Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) June 4, 2018
Tuesday’s INDEPENDENT Digital: “May plans day of Brexit revenge over Lords” #bbcpapers #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/7VvDtRmkow
— Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) June 4, 2018
Tuesday’s METRO: “GRENFELL: Ground Zero” #bbcpapers #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/NAWCpalBk1
— Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) June 4, 2018
Tuesday’s TIMES: “Isis plotters caught in undercover MI5 sting” #bbcpapers #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/TtByDu9Prs
— Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) June 4, 2018
Welcome to day nine of our continuing live coverage of the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire.
After the opening statement by the counsel to the inquiry yesterday and the simultaneous release of expert reports, which highlighted a litany of safety failures, today there will be more opening statements, including on behalf of BSRs (bereaved, survivors and relatives).
It will include the opening statement on behalf of Edward Daffarn, the tower resident who issued warnings in 2016 that disaster would strike. Daffarn, 56, escaped from the 16th floor and has been helping the Metropolitan Police with their criminal investigation.
Today’s proceedings will begin with the opening statement on behalf of the Met, when we may hear about progress with the investigation.
Proceedings are due to start at 10am. The full schedule for today and this week is below.
This is the provisional schedule for the week commencing 4 June. https://t.co/xSJwKxjoCZ pic.twitter.com/hIaj2QZ0V1
— Grenfell Inquiry (@grenfellinquiry) June 1, 2018
Updated
