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Grenfell Tower: Nine Years

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Nine years gone and no prosecutions.
Shameful.

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  4. As a professional incident investigator -it’s actually in my job title – I would caution against a mentality of retribution/blame when looking at these events: people make decisions in a complex environment of organisational, systemic and societal factors and it is very easy to look back with hindsight bias and be exasperated at how ‘obvious’ it was that this event was going to happen.

    We have, unfortunately, evolved to look for simple cause and effect relationships for any outcome, but it is very rarely the case that things are that simple, and even more rare that an outcome was obvious before the event. Added to this, most people have a deeply flawed concept of risk/risk management and a deeply embedded sense of justice which means that they want to see a person/people take the blame.

    As always, the focus needs to be on learning from the event rather than making people ‘face the consequences’.

      • Not sure what “sense” as regards the Grenfell tragedy actually means? Of course in a world blinded by social media everyone has an opinion about the latest disaster and many are quick to lay blame without any real understanding of what went wrong.
        But, come on!, nine years later and still no reason(s), no organisation, no group of people, no individuals have been named in public and brought to account??
        Let’s face it, if the Shard had collapsed taking fifty bankers having an expenses-paid lunch with it, we’d have had a proper enquiry finished within two years max. A tower block full of mostly council flats? See that carpet over there…..

        • I meant sense in the context of retribution and blame. It must be be better to investigate with an open mind and find all of the reasons (not just the big, politically expedient ones). My point on transparency, is, I think, the same point as your second paragraph.

          I made my comment because, all to often, the drive for a quick, politically expedient answer often overrides the potential to make significant changes through well carried out incident investigation and actually adopting any recommendations.

          I absolutely agree with the point that Grenfell is not getting the priority it deserves because of who the victims were.

  5. Shameful yes, surprising no.
    Actions need to have consequences. Serious consequences when those actions have been proven to be due to criminal negligence or malfeasance be that governmental, corporate or individual. However as is usually the case the higher up the food chain the blame lies the less likely that any sort of justice beyond possibly a few quid being chucked to the proles or a few mealy mouthed apologies being made is likely to occur.
    As for learning from the event. An estimated 5,900 to 9,000 residential buildings in England alone require remediation for unsafe cladding. Of the 4000+ specifically identified and monitored by the government, roughly half have yet to have any attention to the matter paid to them.

  6. When I think of those people who spent their last moments trapped in Grenfell, confused by conflicting official advice, and unable to escape, my blood runs cold. I see the remains of the building when I am in London, shrouded, a macabre monument. And I understand @Podicle‘s voice of experience explaining that it is a complex series of failings and corners cut – but as Pencil says, actions need to have consequences. The question is where does the buck stop?

    85% of the buildings inhabitants were from Black or ethnic minority backgrounds, many were low income. Would the building have been better maintained had there been a different socioeconomic demographic? Would the reportedly hostile tenants management organisation paid more heed to the increasingly frantic warnings tenants tried to flag up in the months leading up to the disaster? Would that have been different had they been wealthy white residents? And it is not just racism – consider how little care was paid to tenants – numerous people registered disabled were allocated flats on the upper floors.

    There ARE guilty parties in all of this, a mix of national and local government bodies, the construction industry, regulators and emergency services. Most of all will elide any consequences, nothing will happen to them. But we can certainly start with. Arconic Architectural Products (who manufactured and sold rainscreen panels used in external walls), Celotex (manufactured the foam insulation) and Kingspan. (who made the insulation panels). Investigations and inquiries have uncovered that these three firms amongst others, lied and deceived their way to securing contracts for their products with such flagrant criminality it is mind blowing that nothing has happened to them (other than Keir Starmer bleating that they will not get any more government contracts)

    • I believe Trellick Tower is still largely social housing, brought back from slums, as were the Isokon flats (shared ownership of some, some sold outright) in Belsize Park. I suppose there has to be the will and money to do this. If you’ve never seen the Isokon Building, it’s beautiful and they have open days every few months when a flat can be viewed. They’re small but really well designed.

    • The problem is that it’s not so much determining where does the buck stop, but whose culpable and under which law. There are multiple possible litigants and the CPS have the challenge of ensuring citing charges under one law doesn’t prejudice other charges against other parties or the same party but under different laws. I’ve read the CPS are sitting on 150 million documents and deciding who may be charged with what.

      I think there’s a high likelihood of charges under Health & Safety, and the possibly of fraud and misrepresentation charges against some of the manufacturers. Beyond that whilst there could be charges for negligent manslaughter or corporate manslaughter the legal thresholds will be more challenging to meet. Part of the CPS’s work will be weigh up the likelihood of a win vs the sanctions on offer. Although jail time is theoretically possible it’s much more likely that fines will be imposed.

      here has already been a civil settlement of £150m which was compensation to victims which was paid by a mixture of the construction and refurbishment companies like Rydon, and Arconic as well as two local gov’t bodies. It was made without admission of liability. So if further charges are made under the HSA or fraud, fines will be taken by the Treasury unless judges specifically direct payment to the victims which is less likely given they already made a claim.

      It’s a painfully slow process for all involved, and there are no winners other than lawyers and possibly the Treasury.

  8. I lived in Grenfell Tower for a few months around 1990. We sublet from a dodgy bloke. As far as I understood it had been his granny’s flat. Nobody had told the council she was dead. We moved out rather rapidly when his girlfriend rang to say he’d gone a bit mad and had set fire to her front door.

    I liked living there. It was a buzzing community in the Lancaster West Estate and I worked in Ladbroke Grove at the time. I loved the area. As far as I can recall we were on the 5th or 6th floor. I grew up in a high rise estate in Dublin (the only one!) but have no head for heights. My favourite memory was of a kestrel that used to occasionally hover outside our window. They’re my favourite creatures on the planet.

    I was obviously stunned to watch it burn down. I don’t know what justice for the families affected would look like.

  9. I would highly recommend the Peter Apps book ‘Show Me the Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Happen’ for further reading on this. It is a couple of years since I read it, but i remember it being very interesting

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