Summary
Here’s a summary of developments today from the inquiry and Scotland Yard.
• London Fire Brigade and its senior officers are facing a police investigation over the “stay put” policy which resulted in Grenfell Tower residents being told to remain inside their homes, Scotland Yard said today.
Detectives are attempting to establish whether the order - issued as the tower block blazed in June last year - could have breached health and safety law.
• Fire commanders marshalling the battle against the Grenfell Tower inferno had “no obvious and safe alternative strategy” than telling residents to stay put, an inquiry has heard.
The London Fire Brigade (LFB) has been criticised for the length of time taken to abandon the policy - nearly two hours after the blaze was first reported - despite flames reaching every floor.
• Both the LFB and the Fire Brigade Union (FBU) have flatly denied claims made on Tuesday that firefighters could have been guilty of unconscious racism as they tackled the blaze.
The claim had been made by lawyer for bereaved and survivors Imran Khan QC, who cited the “stereotypes” used in firefighters’ descriptions of residents from black or minority backgrounds.
• Legal counsel for the FBU have questioned whether, given “multiple” safety failings within the building, “the firefighters were always chasing a sinister fire they had no realistic chance of defeating”.
It was suggested that the inquiry should consider whether early incident commanders had training and procedures on issues such as tackling cladding fires, looking out for signs of a breach of compartmentation and when to abandon a stay-put policy.
Fire Brigade and senior officers face police investigation over 'stay put'
London Fire Brigade and its senior officers are facing a police investigation over the “stay put” policy which resulted in Grenfell Tower residents being told to remain inside their homes, Scotland Yard said today.
Detectives are attempting to establish whether the order - issued as the tower block blazed in June last year - could have breached health and safety law.
In a statement to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, the Brigade has said its personnel were placed in “intolerable positions” during the fire, and would have been unaware of any defects caused by refurbishment of the 24-storey building.
Detective Superintendent Matt Bonner, who is leading the police investigation, said also that 36 companies and organisations that had been involved in the construction, refurbishment, maintenance and management of the building were now of particular interest.
So far, two organisations - the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation - are known to be under investigation as corporate manslaughter suspects.
Police also disclosed that eight men and one women were arrested this morning for questioning over alleged fraud, having obtained money and services ranging from £25,000 to £100,000 after claiming to be survivors of the fire.
Shahin Sadafi, chair of Grenfell United, has been reacting to those developments at Scotland Yard. He said:
It is hurtful and saddening that people would take advantage of a tragedy like this. It is not just that they have taken funds and charity that was not for them, it is disrespectful to the real victims of the fire and people who lost their lives.
Our community has shown strength, determination and dignity throughout the last year. Grenfell Tower was a community of good decent people, and we were proud to be each others’ neighbours.
These people have absolutely no place here. We are relieved they have been identified and rooted out.
More details emerged in relation to those police arrests over alleged fraud. Officers raided 11 addresses, predominantly in west London, at around 7am.
Detective Superintendent Matt Bonner said:
All those arrests are in connection with what we believe to be fraudulent claims for housing and/or support of one kind or another, arising out of false claims from people that they were associated with Grenfell Tower.”
We thought long and hard, there’s obviously a need for us to act quickly once we are able to but also wanted to show due respect to events that have been going on in recent weeks in terms of the commemoration hearings and events that are forthcoming in terms of the anniversary.
We have consulted with the community where we could and we timed them with utmost respect to all considerations.
We will bring you more details shortly about the police briefing on those arrests.
In the meantime, the inquiry has placed material from today’s hearings online.
Transcripts and a video of today's hearing have been added to the website. The next hearing will be on Monday 18 June at 10am - a schedule will be added to the website and tweeted on Friday next week. https://t.co/9KVrfWI5pe
— Grenfell Inquiry (@grenfellinquiry) June 7, 2018
Updated
Arrests over alleged fraud
Eight men and one woman have been arrested by Scotland Yard in a series of dawn raids on Thursday over allegations of fraud in connection with the Grenfell fire.
Police believe two of the individuals are linked but said all the offences are separate, the Police said in a briefing.
Some of them were living in hotels when they were detained, and the value of the frauds range from £25,000 to £100,000.
Updated
The Grenfell inquiry may be in a position to make certain urgent interim recommendations even before the phase one report of the judge overseeing it is complete.
That’s according to Richard Millett QC, counsel for the inquiry, who has just been addressing Sir Martin Moore-Bick.
While no date has been given for the publication of the report, phase one hearings are due to be completed by late October.
The Inquiry has kept under close and regular review the question of whether and if so what recommendations could and should be made as a matter of urgency, Millett said.
“Our present view is that it may very well be possible to make certain urgent interim recommendations before your phase one report is published, although we doubt whether it would be sensible or possible to do so before the phase one factual or expert evidence.”
Millett said that there was a “broad measure of agreement” among core participants for the judge to make urgent recommendations as soon as possible.
The inquiry has now broken for today. It will resume on Monday June 18 for the first expert presentation.
Here’s a wrap-up ( via the Press Association) of some of opening statements from the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) and London Fire Brigade (LFB):
FBU
The Grenfell Tower inquiry should consider whether firefighters were put in an “impossible situation” when battling the blaze, the union has said.
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) used an opening statement at the probe to question whether, given “multiple” safety failings within the building, “the firefighters were always chasing a sinister fire they had no realistic chance of defeating”.
Martin Seaward, representing the union, said on Thursday it should be considered whether early incident commanders had training and procedures on issues such as tackling cladding fires, looking out for signs of a breach of compartmentation and when to abandon a stay-put policy.
Addressing the stay-put controversy, Mr Seaward asked “what alternative strategy might have been implemented” in the fast-moving situation. He said: “There remains no obvious and safe alternative strategy nor detailed plan.”
The inquiry was told the FBU would back new measures to ensure all high-rise flats have fire blankets in kitchens, as well as a ban of combustible cladding on all buildings over 18 metres tall.
LFB
It is a “fundamental misunderstanding” of the events of the fire and of fire service capability to assume the building’s stay-put policy can be changed to a simultaneous evacuation at the stroke of a fire incident commander at whatever time, according to legal counsel for the LFB.
“If there is no policy applied by the building owner which provides for a policy of simultaneous evacuation and there are no evacuation plans and there are no general fire alarms - what is an incident commander on the fire ground to do?
Mr Walsh said firefighters responding to the blaze that night would have been “wholly unaware of the defects in the fabric on the building”.
He echoed concerns that criticisms have been made of their strategy with the “benefit of hindsight”.
Here are some of the highlights - as picked out by other correspondents who are at the inquiry:
The LFB counsel tells #GrenfellInquiry that Grenfell Tower highlights lack of clarity about the extent to which maintenance & refurbishments of housing blocks have undermined integrity of the original designs & construction principles from fire safety perspective @BBCRadioLondon
— Susana Mendonça (@susana_mendonca) June 7, 2018
Walsh, representing the LFB, says that the LFB call centre had more calls requiring fire survival guidance from residents within Grenfell Tower last year than the total number of such calls in the previous 10 years from the whole of London #GrenfellInquiry
— Kathryn Snowdon (@Kathryn_Snowdon) June 7, 2018
LFB: on night of #GrenfellTower, the LFB control centre handled more calls about fire survival guidance than the total number of calls in the previous ten years from the whole of London
— Katerina Vittozzi (@kvittozzi) June 7, 2018
FBU on ‘stay-put’ advice: “there remains no obvious & safe alternative strategy, certainly no detailed plan or training for one” #GrenfellInquiry
— Katerina Vittozzi (@kvittozzi) June 7, 2018
FBU asks inquiry to consider if the Grenfell Tower fire was "foreseeable" based on other tower block fires - and whether this means there was a failure at national level to put the required systems in place
— Nathaniel Barker (@NBarker_IH) June 7, 2018
The inquiry is now taking a break
Updated
Counsel for the LFB comes now to the controversy over the “stay put” policy - or the “stay put unless” policy as was described earlier.
He says that he is going to refer to it as the “Stay Put” policy and begins by saying that the principle is linked to building design, which underpins the policies that are in place for fire safety.
Strict adherence to the policy of compartmentalisation is obviously critical to the handling of such fires, adds Stephen Walsh. If during the life of such a building, that compartmentalisation policy is not maintained to the required standard to the extent that the whole building is compromised then the entire basis of fire service approach is fundamentally undermined.
Walsh goes further into the application of the “Stay Put” policy. Rather than being told to stay in their homes no matter what, on the contrary he adds, part of the advice to residents on the night of the fire and nationally at other times was to leave if it is safe to do so.
This is where some of the real dilemmas of the night will come into view, he adds. The emergency calls reveal that many of those who called said that they could not leave because of the conditions in the lobbies, including the moke and lack of visibility.
This was said as early as 1.30am, he says. Some said that they were physically unable to do or due to factors including conditions in the lobbies.
While there was a catastrophic failure of compartmentalisation at Grenfell, Walsh says, the regulation has historically been generally successful from a fire safety perspective.
Updated
The Inquiry and those following it will have to hear much of the evidence but certain things are clear from the beginning, according to counsel for the London Fire Brigade (LFB)
The LFB is clear that the event was “a singular one,” he adds. This included the rapidity with which the fire spread . While the incidents of external fire spread on high rise buildings is not entirely unprecedented, it is extremely rare and has never occurred on the scale of the Grenfell fire.
Similarly, internal spread such as that which occurred elsewhere is not unknown but is a rare occurence in the UK, says Stephen Walsh QC.
The extent to which the fire spread inside Grenfell was also wholly extraorindary
In case there is any doubt “and there appears to be some doubt”, Walsh adds, the LFB is aware that there can be breaches of fire compartmentalisation in these events and that there can be external fire spread.
The LFB does have policies and tactics that have been applied successfully on many occasions, he adds.
Those polices are the result of learning from other fires and the difficulties that were apparent.
Walsh says that the policies and procedures were tested to their limits and there is likely to be examples of departures from those policies because of the challenging circumstances.
The LFB is not a “faceless corporate” and its ranks range from novice fire fighters right the way through to its head, who was herself a novice fire fighter once, according to its opening statement.
Stephen Walsh, QC, for the LFB says that the fire fighters “collective instinct” was to protect life and property -often resulting in physical and mental injury for many
At the commemorative hearings the bereaved reiterated their justifiable demand for many answers, he adds. The LFB will provide answers with full candour, he adds.
Walsh opened by describing the fire as the most challenging incident which the LFB experienced in living memory
“For the fire fighters whose job it was to carry out the fire fighting and rescue operation and the control staff who took calls, the memory of their experience and the events they witnessed will never leave them,” he adds.
Browne, for the FOA, goes on to say that the inquiry may well be left in little doubt that the men and women acted selflessly and at great risk on the night.
This was particularly so in circumstances where the building and the condition it was in “positively impeded” efforts to save life.
An written statement provided by the FOA - including recommendations - can be found here.
Updated
The magnitude of the fire cannot be overstated and has had life changing consequences for fire fighters who were deeply affected that they were not able to save more lives, according to a statement by the Fire Fighters Association (FOA)
We’re hearing an opening statement from that association now, read out by Louis Browne QC.
He echoes the rejection earlier of the FBU’s counsel that discrimination based on race or class played any role in the actions and decisions of the fire fighters.
“What did motivate their actions was their desire to do all they could to save the lives of those who were in the tower,” says Browne.
Updated
The FBU prefers to refer to the policy of advising residents to stay put in in their homes while the fire was taking effect as a “Stay Put Unless” policy, Seaward says.
But the policy which has been the focus of considerable criticism over the past week and before, was certainly not a “rigid” one, he insists.
He asks the inquiry to bear in mind what he describes as the longstanding success of the “stay put unless” policy and to bear in mind what can be seen with the benefit of hindsight and what can have been said was the situation on a night when control staff for the fire brigade were flooded with calls
Clearly there is a huge concern over the continued application of the ‘stay put unless’ policy and there remains no obvious safe and detailed strategy. The FBU invites the inquiry to consider what alternative strategy might have been implemented.
I’ll try to come later to some of the recommendations which the FBU have put forward during their statement.
Updated
The London Fire Brigade did not create this “highly combustible death trap,” says to Seaward.
There is also no evidence that those who responded to what initially seemed to be a routine call were aware of the state of the building.
“Any criticism of the emergency response should be assessed against this background and should not be exploited by those who created the danger,” he adds.
Seaward asks if the firefighters were placed in an impossible situation, with those from top to bottom being asked make impossible decisions with those in the frontline being required to do their best with procedures and equupment made available to them.
The evidence is likely to raise questions about the equipment used, he says, including communication equipment and may require further expert advice from sources including the military
Speaking about the fire service staff who will give evidence, he points out that many will never have given evidence in a setting like this before and will be dreading it. Moreover, many of them will be haunted by their memories of that night
Seaward also says that control says staff will also be haunted by their memories. He says that the inquiry will doubtless ask when the fire spread from the fourth floor up the exterior and back again. When did the control staff know this? Where they overwhelmed by calls?
Updated
The fire fighters who were involved on the night will never forget it and some of them remain traumatised, the inquiry has been told at the outset of a statement being made by lawyer Martin Seaward, representing the Fire Brigades Union (FBU)
The fire fighters were presented with challenges beyond their knowledge and proceedures. Even so, their bravery has been widely praised.
The FBU agrees that public confidence in the fire and rescue service is of vital importance and the union recognises the public interest in a successful public inquiry
The FBU agrees that following the refurbishments, as others have said, Grenfell was “a higly combustible death trap.
Not only was there serial non compliance with building regulations but there was no evidence of any sustained attempt to make up for that, according to Seaward.
The FBU invites the inquiry to consider whether there was a complete failure of thefire safety regime at each stage of works. Furthermore after the works, further opportunities mitigate the risks were missed.
A written statement provided by the FBU for the inquiry’s opening phase can be read here.
Updated
Good morning and welcome to coverage of the Grenfell Inquiry, where we are going to be hearing evidence today on behalf of fire fighters after criticism of the emergency services’ handling of the disaster.
The provisional schedule for today is as follows:
0.00 – 10.20: Fire Brigade Union
10.20 – 10.30 Fire Officers Association
10.30 – 11.30 London Fire Brigade
11.30 – 11.45 Break
11.45- 12.30 Counsel to the Inquiry (Richard Millett QC)
A livestream link for today’s proceedings has just been posted here by the Inquiry
Updated
