Grenfell inquiry: tower was a 'death trap created using public funds' - live updates

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 21^st 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.

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):

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.