"Grenfell Tower was turned into a “death trap” by “dangerous” refurbishment work carried out by the local authority and tenants management organisation, the inquiry into the fire has been told.
On the ninth day of the hearing, Danny Friedman QC, speaking on behalf of the law firms representing survivors and the bereaved, said they were watching the inquiry with “calm rage”.
Cladding fitted to the outside of Grenfell Tower turned it into a death trap, he said. “The royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the tenants management organisation did this [refurbishment] with public funds paid to an array of contractors and sub-contractors – none of whom have yet taken any responsibility for what happened.
“Residents and many people told them that this would happen but they were fobbed off and certainly not treated as equals. Seventy-two people died. Those who escaped owed their survival to chance rather than as a result of assessments or contingency planning by the fire brigade.”
The building works were “obviously dangerous, reprehensible and contrary to regulations”, Friedman said. “The [fire brigade] failed to realise quickly enough that this was a fire that could not be fought and required evacuation that could not be delayed.”
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Earlier, lawyers for the Metropolitan police told the inquiry that the scale of the criminal investigation into the fire was “unprecedented and extremely demanding”.
Jeremy Johnson QC, for the force, said: “The criminal investigation is progressing in accordance with intended timescales.” He revealed that the building would be released from being considered as a crime scene by July or August.
Stephanie Barwise, counsel for the same group of law firms representing residents, said: “Of the six commonly recognised layers of protection against fire, namely prevention, detection, evacuation, suppression, compartmentation and the resistance of the structure to fire, at Grenfell Tower, five of those layers failed. That the structure survived is testament to its original solid concrete, virtually incombustible construction.”
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Barwise pointed to many previous examples of cladding fires around the world. “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,” she said.
“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.”
Turning to the building contractors, Barwise said: “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.
“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.”
Sam Stein QC, representing another group of survivors and residents, told the inquiry: “The loss of life was wholly avoidable.... The very safety system that was meant to preserve life had been perverted into a fire killing system.”
Exova Warrington, the fire safety consultants used in the refurbishment, had advised, Stein said, 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"