And fire chiefs could be prosecuted for telling blaze victims to ‘stay put’
FIRE chiefs could face criminal charges over the controversial advice to ‘stay put’ given to Grenfell Tower residents during the inferno that killed 72.
Scotland Yard is investigating whether London Fire Brigade commanders breached health and safety laws by enforcing the policy.
On the night of the blaze, when flames spread to the top of the 24-storey building in just 12 minutes, residents were told to stay in their flats for almost two hours.
Detective Superintendent Matt Bonner, who is leading the investigation, said: ‘The LFB would, as any other organisation involved, have an obligation to conduct their activity in a manner that doesn’t place people at risk.’
Fire safety expert Dr Barbara Lane said the advice was already questionable within 21 minutes of the first 999 call at 12.54am, and by 1.26am it was utterly redundant as the inferno raged out of control.
Despite this, the policy was not formally abandoned until 2.47am – almost two hours after the fire started.
The advice applied to the tower when it was built in the Seventies on the basis that it was designed to contain any blaze in the apartment where it started. But during a £9million refurbishment in 2016, flammable window frames were installed that helped the fire spread to new exterior cladding, which also caught light.
Detectives have interviewed 579 firefighters and control-room staff, and intend to interview another 250. The logic of maintaining the stayhad put advice for so long has been ‘emphatically queried’ by firefighters in their statements.
Lawyers for the bereaved have told the inquiry that advice given to residents by 999 operators was ‘confusing, dangerous and too often fatal’.
One survivor, Marcio Gomes, said he believed delays in getting his family to safety had cost the life of his wife’s unborn child.
The Fire Brigades Union defended the policy at the public inquiry yesterday, and said there been ‘no obvious and safe alternative strategy’. Martin Seaward, representing the union, warned the inquiry not to allow criticism of decision-making by firefighters to be ‘exploited by those who created the danger’.
He said the botched refurbishment had turned Grenfell into a ‘ highly combustible death trap’ of a sort the brigade had not been trained to tackle.
The fire brigade said the inquiry should consider whether immediate evacuation was feasible given that the tower had only one staircase, no fire alarm and no system for giving an evacuation alert.
Emma Dent Coad, the Labour MP for Kensington, said it was ‘desperately unfair’ to criticise the fire brigade, which was not responsible for the safety failings blamed for the spread of the blaze, adding: ‘The advice is correct for a building that is being maintained properly.’
As part of its criminal investigation, Scotland Yard has identified more than 500 firms and organisations linked to Grenfell, and bosses could face corporate manslaughter charges.
Det Supt Bonner said: ‘It is one of the largest and most complex investigations undertaken outside counter-terrorism.’
‘Highly combustible death trap’