That’s it for the blog today. Robert Booth has more on the opening day here:
Our legal affairs correspondent, Owen Bowcott, sets out the key questions relating to inquiry:
And there will be more reports, analysis and commentary on our Grenfell Tower fire section.
The leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council said she hopes to find permanent homes for all the households displaced by the Grenfell Tower fire by the end of the summer.
Of the 210 households made homeless, about a third have moved into permanent accommodation.
Asked when she expected to have rehoused all the households permanently Elizabeth Campbell told the World at One on BBC Radio 4: “I would hope that we would do so by the summer.”
She added: “Some people aren’t ready to make a decision and some feel that some of the flats aren’t quite what they want.”
Summary
Here’s a summary of what he heard from the opening day of the inquiry:
- Sir Martin Moore-Bick opened the inquiry by stressing the importance of the next two weeks of tributes to the victims. He said: “They are an integral part of the evidence before the inquiry. They will remind us of its fundamental purpose and the reason why it is so important that the truth be laid bare.”
-
The families of six of the victims have chosen not give tributes to their loved ones. Their names were and flat numbers were read out: Victoria King, flat 172; Alexandra Atalal flat 172; Marco Gottardi, flat 202; Abufras Ibrahim, flat 206; Abdeslam Sebbar flat 81 and Sheila, flat 132.
- The commemorations opened with a heart braking tribute to the youngest victim Logan Gomes, by his father Marcio Gomes. Images of the stillborn body were shown to the inquiry. “I held my son in my arms hoping it was a bad dream,” Marcio said.
- We heard much more about the life of one of the little known victims, Denis Murphy, from his sister Anne-Marie. He was the lynchpin of the family and had joined the Unite union to campaign for the community, she said.
- Former Afghan army officer Mohamed ‘Saber’ Neda emerged as one of the bravest victims. He saved his wife Flora and son Farhad and then realised he was not going to make it. His last phone call of him saying “good bye to you all” was played to the inquiry.
- The son of Joseph Daniels, Sam, gave the briefest tribute so far. “He never stood a chance of getting out. It should never have happened,” he said.
- The opening day concluded with tributes from the family of Mary Mendy and her daughter Khadija Saye. It included moving video of Saye talking about her passion for photography and the pride her mother took in her work.
Updated
Here’s the full statement from Mohammedu Saye father of Khadija Saye.
“My daughter Khadija Saye was 24 years old when she lost her life in the Grenfell Tower fire. She was very gentle, very kind and friendly. She was born in Hammersmith, London in 1992. She attended St Charles primary school and Sion Manning secondary school both in Ladbroke Grove, west London.
“She later went on to Rugby school in Warwickshire and the University for Creative Arts in Farnham to study photography. Her burning passion was photography encouraged by her mother Mary Mendy, who also lost her life in the same fire.
“Khadija said to me one day: ‘Daddy I’m in love with images’. It was this passion that Khadija pursued to the end because it gave her great satisfaction and brought her some joy and happiness. Thank you very much.’
Updated
The short address by Sam Daniels spoke volumes of the continuing distress and anger on the part of many families at the events of last June.
His father Joseph was born in India, served in the Indian air force, moved to London in the early 1980s and lived in Grenfell tower on the 16th floor since 1983.
Daniels was a security guard an amateur bodybuilder and a committed Christian who loved singing and Elvis Presley.
About six years ago, Daniels began to show signs of dementia and his son became his full-time carer. When smoke started seeping into their flat on 14 June last year, Sam desperately tried to persuade his father to leave, but Daniels, who was confused, would not move. Sam, beginning to feel the effects of smoke, went to find help.
On the stairs, Sam met firefighters and told them his father was disabled and he had been unable to get him to leave the flat. They could not find Daniels, and Sam believes this is because, in the redecoration of the building a couple of years before the fire, the floors were renumbered, but the council did not paint the new numbers in the internal staircase.
Updated
It was fascinating to hear more about Mary Mendy. I spoke to her cousin Clarrie Mendy shortly before the inquiry and got a sense of a strong, independent west African woman devoted to her only birth daughter, Khadija Saye.
I didn’t know she had a niece, Marion Telfer, who considered her an irreplaceable mother figure in her life. We knew Mary worked as a carer but hadn’t quite got the sense of the great humanitarian she was, travelling back to Gambia to help with local charitable works.
Of all the victims of the tower fire, Mary is one of the ones I would most like to have met and spoken with.
Here’s the full statement from Mary Mendy’s niece, whose name was given as Marion.
“She came to England in the 1980s. In 1992 she gave birth to Khadija which turned out to be the greatest and proudest day of her life. She completely devoted her life to Khadija. Marion says I joined my aunt in December 1992. We moved into Grenfell Tower around 1993.”
“My aunt and Khadija lived at the address until that fateful night where our lives were changed forever. My aunt was my hero. She has been in my life for every major event. She was my mum as well as my aunt.
For the first time in my life my aunt is not a phone call away. She’s not there to listen to my complaints or my gossip. My aunt made me a priority in life. She was the best aunt an sister we could have asked for. She was warm and kind. She welcomed everyone into her home. Grenfell tower was a place all her family and friends could find shelter if they ever needed it.
Mary Mendy was a carer who worked within her community. She was a humanitarian who made it a passion to help those less fortunate than herself. She frequently travelled to Gambia and offered donations to hospitals and other organisations. On the night of 14 June 2017 our family lost two much-loved members. My aunt was the strong one, the fighter and the protector. The pain is unbearable. There are no words to describe the emptiness that it is in our hearts.
I hate night times because night brings silence and silence brings tears of silence because that is when I start to remember the blaze of fire.
There will be two empty chairs on the table for every birthday, Christmas and New Years, but they will forever own a position in our hearts. We will carry their memories throughout our lives, our children’s and our children’s children. Although the pain feels like forever, it will soon be replaced by happiness. All of the tears will be replaced by memories of joy. Until we meet again.
End of the opening day
That concludes the presentations for today.
Moore-Bick thanks the families for moving and “impressive” presentations and says the inquiry will resume on Tuesday.
Updated
A statement by the father of Khadija Saye, is then read out to the inquiry. He said photography was her burning passion.
A film made about Saye before the Venice Biennale, including clips of her in her Grenfell home, is introduced to the inquiry.
It starts with an image of the tower before the fire.
In the video Saye says she was a flamboyant child as she waved her arms in front of the camera. She talks about her gratitude to her photography teachers. “Without them, I wouldn’t be here,” she said.
She talked about being brought up by a Muslim father and Christian mother.
She talked about the excitement at showing her photographs to her mother, and the pride her mother Mary Mendy had in the Venice Bienale show.
A family statement read on behalf Marion, the niece of Mary Mendy whose daughter Khadija Saye was also killed in the fire.
She talked about the pain of remembering her aunt at night. Although the pain feels like a it will last forever, it will soon be replaced by happy memories, it said.
Updated
The inquiry resumes with a brief tribute to Joseph Daniels by his son Sam.
He said:
The events of that night took his life and all trace of his existence from this world. He never stood a chance of getting out. It should never have happened.
Sam asked for no applause.
That was a tough morning for a lot of people in the room and there were lots of tears. I looked around after Saber Neda’s final phone call was played and the RBKC leader Elizabeth Campbell looked shaken and moved. Earlier she told me: “I want to bear witness and pay respects. When I speak to people I know it has been just awful.”
But there is also a strong feeling of relief at proceedings having got underway after a long wait. Sir Martin Moore-Bick and the lawyers are taking a back seat at the moment and the focus is entirely on the families and friends of those who died.
This afternoon is likely to be no less difficult for those people involved and those listening in.
Bernard Richmond QC, the second counsel to the inquiry, is giving an informal briefing before the stream is switched on.
He is a specialist in handling trauma and says: “It is going to be a very emotional six days” and said “there are some parts which seem to me to be particularly emotive.”
He said he will warn people about pictures, about voices of the deceased, images of the tower or fire.
Describing the commemorations that have been prepared he said: “The work has been both moving and admirable.”
He said: “This room needs to be a calm safe space for those people and all of us. When people are going through and talking can we please keep movement in the room to a minimum. People will of course want to go out because they are feeling overwhelmed.”
He is also saying that the media must behave respectfully and appropriately towards bereaved people.
While we wait the inquiry to resume at 2pm, here’s the Guardian’s editorial on what it should uncover.
Almost a year on, there remains a disturbing feeling that justice is far from being delivered. The families of the dead are a long way from possessing any sense of completion. The inquiry, led by a judge, is a necessary step, but it is far from being a sufficient one.
The government has yet to make much progress on the houses that the former Grenfell residents need – only one in three of the families are living in a permanent new home. Woeful handling of the situation by Kensington and Chelsea council has not improved much since it dumped its ineffective leadership last year, bringing in a new head who’d never been to a tower block. Unsurprisingly the council continues to build fewer affordable homes than any other London borough.
Justice must also been seen to be done. Many fear that ministers will never fully hold to account those culpable, shying away from taking on vested interests in the building industry.
The opening remarks by Richard Millett, lead counsel to the inquiry, are also worth recalling.
He set out the importance of hearing the tributes to the victims. Millett said:
In our search using the tools of evidence and science at our disposal we risk losing sight of why we are doing it and the people that we are doing it for. So it is only right that this inquiry starts not with the study of combustible materials, fire spread, and the building regulations – that will come soon enough – but with the individual human voices and faces of this tragedy.
“Today and in the days that follow you will hear from the family and friends who have lost their loved ones in the flames at Grenfell tower and to whose memory our search for the truth is dedicated.
“The bereaved have chosen to commemorate their loved ones in different ways. Some by speaking to you directly, some by presenting a film or montage of photographs. As Maya Angelou wrote ‘there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside’. We hope that these days of commemorations of Grenfell’s lost loved ones will enable their stories to be told and the agony of those who bear them to be lessened by telling.
Millett also revealed that the families of six of the victims had chosen not give tributes to their loved ones.
He said:
There are some for whom the weight of grief is simply too great to bear and who have chosen to grieve privately or in silence. For them the inquiry is honoured to provide a voice with which to name their loved ones. So may we remember Victoria King, flat 172; so may we remember Alexandra Atalal, flat 172; so may we remember Marco Gottardi, flat 202; so may we remember Abufras Ibrahim, flat 206; so may we remember Abdeslam Sebbar flat 81 and so may we remember Sheila, flat 132.
In his opening remarks chair of the inquiry, Sir Martin Moore-Bick said the tributes were an integral part of the inquiry. It is worth recounting the text of his opening remarks:
“When we die, we live on in memories of those who knew and loved us. It is fitting therefore that the opening hearings of the inquiry should be dedicated to the memory of those who died. They will be remembered through the words and pictures chosen by the people who knew them best and loved them most. Their families and friends.
“They will share with us their memories of those whom they have lost. During the coming days there will be much sorrow. Sorrow at the memory of lives cut short and sorrow at the contemplation of promise unfulfilled. Sorrow at the loss of close relations and sorrow at the absence of friends and neighbours.
“But that sorrow will, I hope, be tempered by memories of past happiness and of time spent together and of former joys. And above all by thanksgiving for those who by their lives enriched the lives of those with whom they lived and among who they moved.
“Although what we shall hear and see over the coming days maybe described as memorials, they are in truth much more than that. They are an integral part of the evidence before the inquiry. They will remind us of its fundamental purpose and the reason why it is so important that the truth be laid bare.
“Only by achieving that goal can we ensure justice for the living and a lasting tribute to the dead. At the end of these hearings the names of all those whom we are commemorating will be read out. But now I invited you to stand for 72 seconds silence as a mark of respect for those who died.”
Updated
The inquiry started with the youngest victim Logan Gomes. Marcio and Andreia Gomes had told the story of their escape from Grenfell tower with great clarity and composure on a Newsnight programme last year.
On the night itself, the parents managed to get themselves and their two daughters down the fire escape and out of the building, but Andreia was taken to hospital and put into an induced coma. They were subsequently told that doctors believed Logan’s heart gave out because of a lack of oxygen during the escape.
Today, we learned so much about how excited the family was about the imminent arrival of their third child - the two girls daughters offering to babysit, the nursery ready and waiting. And we could understand the depth of their grief from Marcio’s moving appearance.
There was a nice touch from Marcio when he said this of his wife: “I may be doing all the talking but she (Andreia) is the one who is rock solid.”
Until today the family had said little about Denis Murphy’s life in the aftermath of the fire, so this was all compelling new testimony.
It’s really striking just how many Grenfell families lost their “lynchpin”, as his sister Anne Marie Murphy described him. The oldest of four children, and from a generation and a family where the oldest son pretty quickly becomes a role model to his younger siblings.
We knew Denis was a big football fan: Chelsea fans gave him a standing ovation at a match last autumn. We didn’t know of the rivalry with his Spurs fan son Peter. But his backstory - loved sports, worked hard, West London born-and-bred and family man through and through - is reminiscent of at least two other Grenfell victims, Gary Maunders and Tony Disson.
The thing that struck me most about Mohamed ‘Saber’ Neda from conversations with his son Farhad is that this was a prominent, career-minded Afghan who had to restart his life utterly from scratch after fleeing in the 1990s.
There were several other Grenfell victims like that - Fathia Alsanousi and Bassem Choukair spring to mind.
What we hear repeatedly about these immigrants is how they manage to overcome the pain of exile, the frustration of losing their primary career and the misery of sudden anonymity in a strange land to devote themselves to family and community in their new homelands.
Mohamed Neda comes across as both a fascinating and thoroughly decent human being. He was one of more than 40 Muslims to die in the tower.
Lawyers for Mohamed Amied Neda begin three statement on behalf of his family who sitting are beside them.
The statements refer to Neda by his nickname Saber. The statement from his brother Arif, recalls how DNA from his son Farhad Neda had to be taken to identify Saber’s body.
Arif recalled that his brother saved his wife and son before dying in the fire. He said: “There are still so many unanswered questions. The only thing I know is that my brother was a hero.”
He added: “I hope we can get more answers from this inquiry and justice for those who were killed including Saber.”
A statement from Neda’s son Farhad, said the family home was full of life and laughter. Neda treated everyone with respect, and for this reason he was loved by everyone. He was a man of deep integrity and fairness.
No one said a bad word about him in Grenfell for the 18 years the family lived there, Farhad recalled.
He never took a day off sick. He worked as chauffeur and dressed smartly even when he did not have a booking. He had collection of ties of all colours and patterns.
Farhad added that his father “gave me all the help he could in my schooling”. His dad would ferry him to and from taekwondo classes and competitions. He said: “He took me everywhere as I competed all over Britain. He never complained. Through his encouragement I have won 25 medals in national and international competitions.”
He added: “I know he was very proud of me. We were a great team. He was my best friend and the man I admire most.”
All the medals and photos of the competition were lost in the fire, Farhad’s statement said. “My dad ensured that the photos took pride of place in the flat. They were all destroyed,” he said.
His father urged Farhad to save money for a house and offered to pay for his wedding that he will now not attend. The statement said: “Dad always put me first. He would always put others before himself. He would spend days thinking of how he could help others. He was always smiling and was a pleasure to be around.”
I was in a state of deep despair after the fire, Farhad recalled. But he then dreamt about his father. “He said ‘don’t worry son. I’m behind you’. He has given me the strength to carry on. He will be looking after us, he will always be behind us,” Farhad said.
A statement from Saber’s widow Flora recalled how the couple grew up in Afghanistan. He was a high ranking in officer when the couple met. “It was love at first sight,” she said. They married in 1991. Their son Farhad was born in Kabul in 1993 at a time when it was forbidden for a father to be at the birth of a child. She held up Farhad to a hospital window for Saber to see. He was so proud, she said.
After the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, the couple fled to the UK in 1998, because of its tolerance and respect for human rights, she said. “We were very proud to be British citizens,” she said.
She also talked of her pride at seeing her husband and son working together in the chauffeur business. There was standing room only at this funeral, her statement said.
She said it was a difficult time for the family after the fire as both she and her son were in a coma, and Saber was missing.
The statement added: “We were both very proud of our home, when it was offered in 1999. Sadly we have lost many friends in the fire including two girls who would look at tropical fish tank in our flat.”
Saber was looking forward to the marriage of our son, and the possibility of grandchildren, she recalled. He was very proud of his son graduating. “It is just so sad that he will not be there for the wedding or share in the joy of having grandchildren,” she said.
“There is a heavy sense of loss in our hearts which will never go away. He always did everything with a smile. He will always be the love of my life.”
The statement was greeted with applause.
A recording of Saber’s last phone call was played to the inquiry. “Good bye to you all” were his last words.
The inquiry will now take a lunch break and resume at 2pm.
Updated
Anne Marie, sister of Denis Murphy, takes to the floor to read a statement on behalf of the family.
He was born with a twinkle in his eye in Hammersmith. As a child he lived in Kensington, Dorking, and Gravesend in Kent, before returning to London. He was good at maths, football, and cross-country running.
“He taught us to grow into the adults that we are today”, his sister said. Denis worked as a painter and decorator when he had trials for Charlton Athletic and Crystal Palace. He didn’t make it as a professional footballer but he was a keen Sunday league player until injury forced him to stop.
“He was the linchpin of our family,” she said. His three biggest loves were family, friends and Chelsea football club. “Not always in that order,” Anne-Marie joked.
She recalled how Denis had joined the union Unite so that he could campaign for the community around Grenfell. She said one of his proudest memories was seeing his son, Peter, graduate. He was not so proud when Peter became a Tottenham fan, she said.
Denis visited his mother every day, Anne-Marie recalled. He also rang each member of his family on a set day each week.
In his last phone call Denis called him brother Tim. We tried to reassure him that we would get to him never realised that we would not make it, she said.
She added:
“Ever since Denis has gone there is a gaping hole in our lives.
We as a family feel strongly that there is no reason in the world why anyone should have death forced upon them in such a horrific way. The day Denis died a part of all of us died too. To us Denis was an inspiration and we feel lucky and blessed that he was part of our family. His warmth and love will stay with us forever.
The only thing they have left of his possession are a few coins, she said.
The family of stillborn baby Logan Gomes comes to the stage. Logan’s father Marcio Gomes introduced his wife Andreia and his legal team.
Marcio shows a slide of a twinkle-twinkle poster from the room that the family had prepared for Logan. He said the family, including the couple’s two daughters, escaped from their 21st storey flat at four in the morning.
Logan’s due day was in August but instead he was born on the 14th of June, Marcio said. “I held my son in my arms that day, hoping that it was all a bad dream,” he said.
“We had so much prepared for him”, Marcio said. Logan was going to support the Portuguese football team Benfica (Marcio’s favourite) and Liverpool, his father said.
“He was going to be my superstar,” Marcio said. Logan’s sisters wanted their brother to sleep in their rooms, not the nursery. “They were extremely happy about what was coming,” Marcio said of his daughters’ anticipation about the birth. “He will always be with us in our hearts,” he said.
Pictures of Logan’s body dressed in baby clothes are shown to the inquiry. “He looked like he was just sleeping,” Marcio said. “At least we were able to hold him and be with him,” Marcio says while struggling to hold back tears.
He added:
“Our sleeping angel he was. We let him go with the doves so that he can fly with the angels. This has been our hardest battle. We are proud of him even though he was with us for only seven months. You only know what you are made of when you are broken.
Marcio then paid this tribute to his wife Andreia. “I tell you this my wife is made of the hardest material. And without her strength, I would not be here,” he said before hugging his wife.
Moore-Bick thanks Marcio for his words. “That was very moving,” the retired judge said. There will now be a five minute break.
Lead counsel to the inquiry, Richard Millett, begins his opening remarks.
Millett starts with facts about the history of the 24-storey block, before describing how the fire started and took hold. The last survivor escaped at 8.07am he said.
Phase one will recount the human experience of those who escaped and those who didn’t, Millett said. “Grenfell is not a lawyer’s argument, or a scientist’s experiment, Grenfell was home,” Millett said. It was a human space for human lives, that is what a home is, he said. Grenfell was also a refuge in a city that has a reputation for tolerance.
Residents worked, played and prayed together, and many of them died together, Millett said. The inquiry about facts and science risks losing sight of the human tragedy, he said, so it is right that the inquiry begins with tributes to the victims.
Millett quotes Maya Angelou: “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
He then begins reading out the names of some of the victims and the flat where they lived.
Updated
Moore-Bick says the fire represented the biggest loss of life in a single event since the second world war.
Sorrow will tempered by joyous memories of those who died, he said. He talks about the importance of getting to the truth. He then calls for 72 seconds of silence to remember those who died.
Inquiry begins
Here we go ... Retired judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick is welcoming participants and the viewing public to the start of the inquiry.
There is a levelling atmosphere to the gathering at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel. In the moments before the inquiry begins at 11am families and friends of the victims are milling over cups of tea alongside senior police officers, the leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Elizabeth Campbell, NHS workers who have been involved in the mental health response, solicitors for the core participants and high profile barristers including Michael Mansfield QC.
I joined one conversation where Nabil Choucair, 43, who remains in temporary accommodation with his family after the fire, buttonholed Campbell over problems with his key workers. Across the room, Det Supt Matt Bonner, the Scotland Yard detective in charge of the criminal investigation, got his bearings. He will be attending for the whole of the next two weeks to hear the tributes to the deceased.
People are braced for an emotional day and there is a quietness among many, akin to a gathering at a funeral. The first person to pay tribute will be Marcio Gomes, the father of the stillborn baby Logan Gomes. He is expected to use a slide presentation.
Then Anne Marie Murphy will pay tribute to Denis Murphy, followed by four of five family members of Mohamed Amied Neda. Later in the day there will be tributes to Joseph Daniels, Mary Mendy and Khadija Saye, the artist and friend of the MP David Lammy.
Today’s session is expected to run until about 2.30pm, inquiry officials said.
Updated
When proceedings get underway in the next few minutes you should be able to watch a live stream from the inquiry’s YouTube.
The live stream of today's hearing will begin at 11am: https://t.co/dvSRBXF0E7
— Grenfell Inquiry (@grenfellinquiry) May 21, 2018
Stillborn baby Logan Gomes to be first victim commemorated
The first victim to be commemorated will be Logan Gomes who was stillborn in hospital the day after the fire. His mother, Andreia, who was seven months pregnant, lived on the 21st floor with her husband Marcio and two children.
The inquiry has published a running order for Monday’s proceedings and a list of the first victims to be remembered.
The next five commemorations will be: Denis Murphy, a 56-year-old Chelsea fan who lived on the 14th floor; Mohammed Amied Neda , a former senior officer in the Afghan army turned minicab driver who lived on the 23rd floor; Joseph Daniels, who suffered from dementia and refused to move from his 14th-floor flat on the night of the fire; and Mary Mendy and her artist daughter Khandija Saye who shared a flat on the 20th floor.
You can read more about all of the victims here.
The programme for today's commemorative hearing. A link to the stream will be posted at 10:45. pic.twitter.com/wGuHbIGrwB
— Grenfell Inquiry (@grenfellinquiry) May 21, 2018
Ana Ospina, whose 12-year-old niece Jessica Urbano Ramirez died in the fire, expects a tough week ahead.
It is going to be a tough week 😢 With the strength and love of the community we can get through this but lets hope that the truth prevails and that justice is served on those culpable for this horrific fire #72Angels #grenfellunited #justice4grenfell #justiceforjessie 💚 https://t.co/JX9tbZU1tk
— Ana Ospina (@MakeupAna) May 21, 2018
Updated
Shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, said the inquiry must examine why the concerns of residents about safety were ignored.
Speaking to Radio 4’s Today programme she said she had confidence that Sir Martin Moore-Bick would “get to the facts”, but she urged him to ensure that the community was central to the process.
She said: “This should be a really seminal inquiry and you can’t get it right unless you have the community at the heart of it. Grenfell is more than the sum of its parts. It is the technical aspects of how the fire started, but there are also broader issues that we need to touch on.”
She said she hoped the inquiry would look into wider issues in the same way that the Macpherson review into the death of Stephen Lawrence examined the broader issue of institutional racism.
Abbott said: “There are issues about Grenfell, over and above the cladding and so on, about why ... no one listened to [the community]. Why they were almost abandoned. We need to dig down and find out why those people weren’t listened to.
“Had they been listened to before the fire, the fire would not have happened. It is all about giving people a voice. They said over and over that there would be this type of disaster, and tragically this disaster happened.”
Asked whether the inquiry should separate emotion from fact-finding, Abbott said: “The bereaved and the survivors want the fact-finding. They want a forensic examination of what happened. They want answers to questions. They want to know who should take responsibility. But none of us can forget what that horrible, horrible event meant to communities.”
Updated
Natasha Elcock, who was rescued from her 11th floor flat along with her six-year-old daughter and her boyfriend, has spoken of the importance of hearing tributes to the victims of the fire at the start of the inquiry.
“They are not just names, they were people, the public deserve to hear the wonderful characters that were in that block,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
She said she expected that listening to the portraits will be “exceptionally difficult” but necessary for all those involved and the public at large.
She said: “The public deserve to hear what it is that we have lost as a community, and to try to get some understanding ... that this should never have happened.”
Elcock, who is a member of Grenfell United, said fighting for justice for the victims was helping her cope with grief. “I need to put my strength my energy and my trauma into fighting this battle that we have,” she said.
She also praised the bravery of the families who have agreed to speak about their loved ones at the inquiry. Elcock said:
My heart goes out to every single bereaved family who are doing pen portraits this week and next week. But I’m immensely proud of them because through all their grief and sorrow ... they want to do their relatives proud. They want to ensure that their memory is brought to the inquiry.
“I think it is exceptionally important that it starts with this. We have spoken to the Hillsborough families and they explained how much this helped them in the process. So we are grateful that the judge and the inquiry team have allowed this to happen. And for those who don’t do it on this phase it possibly can happen in phase two if families wish to do so.
“We must remember all of those people who died and we must keep them in our hearts and our minds all the way through this inquiry until the bitter end.”
Updated
Welcome to the start of our live coverage of the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire.
The first stage of the inquiry will start at 11am at the conference centre at the Millennium Gloucester hotel, in South Kensington. It will begin with a welcome by its chairman, retired appeal court judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick, and some opening remarks by the lead counsel to the inquiry, Richard Millett. It will then move on to tributes by family and friends to the 72 victims of the fire on 14 June last year.
The portraits, in the form of video recordings and personal statements, are expected to last for nine days. Very little is known about a small minority of the victims because their families have been too grief-stricken to talk about them. That may still be the case but the tributes could shed new light on this group.
After the tributes the inquiry will then move on to Holborn bars, in the legal heart of London, and begin examining the night of the fire itself and the response of emergency services.
The second stage, which may not begin until next year, will then look at the lead-up to the fire, including decisions made over the refurbishment by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which has been widely blamed for the spreading of the blaze.
Last week it was announced that the inquiry would be widened to include people with the skills to examine the cultural and community reasons behind the fire, following pressure from survivors and families of victims.
What we can expect from inquiry is previewed on the latest Politics Weekly podcast, with contributions from the Guardian’s senior reporter Robert Booth, housing commentator and campaigner Dawn Foster, and Inquest’s Deborah Coles.
The Guardian has spent months putting together portraits of all 72 people who died in the fire based on exclusive testimony from family and friends.
Mark Rice-Oxley, who coordinated the project, writes:
Not all families wanted to contribute: their grief is still too raw. But the majority did, and the details about individuals – and about the group as a whole – say a lot about 21st-century Britain.
The makeup of the 72 people who died shows how diverse, open and tolerant Britain has become in the past 30 years (more than half the adult victims had arrived in the country since 1990).
The Grenfell lives closely mirror the complexities of modern Britain: young families scrambling for childcare cover and extra jobs to help pay the bills; people still living with parents well into their 20s and 30s; refugees who abandoned careers and status in perilous homelands for safe anonymity half a world away; the very elderly – there were seven victims aged over 70 – grappling with disability in a crowded health system.
But Grenfell was not a microcosm of Britain or London. There were few white-collar workers among the victims and only seven white Britons , indicative of how the disaster disproportionately affected minority ethnic communities.
Mark will be on hand to contribute his insights into what more we learn about the victims as the inquiry progresses.
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