The other Grenfell scandal we can’t ignore
They must be the most callous couple in Britain. Two individuals who cynically saw the Grenfell disaster not as a tragedy, but as an opportunity for profit.
In the week the disaster inquiry heard heart-rending stories of loss and horror from victims’ families, two illegal immigrants from Jamaica, elaine Douglas and Tommy Brooks, pleaded guilty to fraud after falsely taking £120,000 from the Grenfell disaster fund.
Like vultures, they preyed on calamity, claiming they lived in flat 91 on the 19th floor when that flat was actually on the 12th floor. The authorities, through incompetence and a desperation to do the right thing, accepted what they said.
The pair were put up for months in a smart hotel, dining in style in the highly acclaimed restaurant.
how these two, devoid of any shred of humanity, can live with themselves is beyond comprehension. And they’re not the only ones. yesterday, a student became the fifth Grenfell fraudster to be jailed.
Meanwhile, a year on, the victims’ loved ones need to know the truth about that fire: was it the fault of the local authority; cladding manufacturers; building inspectors; or a combination of all of these?
We heard haunting testimony this week about how firemen insisted people stay in their flats rather than try to escape down the stairs — did this lead to more deaths? Only by providing honest answers to these questions can the inquiry offer victims and their families solace.
In contrast, Douglas and Brooks specialised in robbing Grenfell victims of justice. yet it emerges they have been allowed to stay in Britain without permission ever since they arrived here 16 years ago.
Their story is important because it shines a light on a scandal all but ignored by a liberal establishment obsessed with multi-culturalism: illegal immigrants and our abject failure to remove them.
estimates of how many illegals are in the UK range from 500,000 to more than a million. Whatever the case, in 2017 we sent home only 12,542.
There are illegals like Douglas and Brooks all over the country, permitted to remain by gutless politicians too frightened of accusations of racism to deport them.
These people pay no taxes and exist in a murky underworld, scamming their way through life.
The scandal of these fraudsters exposes the sheer incompetence of the home Office. Cravenly politically correct, turning a blind eye to criminality, the question we must ask is: Is it any longer fit for purpose? One way to help assuage our doubts would be to put Douglas and Brooks on the first plane back to Jamaica.