Soccer star’s ‘seek help’ Grenfell call
Ferdinand’s advice over public inquiry
INQUIRY: Former England footballer Les Ferdinand urged the Grenfell survivors and those who lost friends and family to seek help if they feel overwhelmed when they give evidence to the public inquiry.
FORMER ENGLAND footballer Les Ferdinand urged the Grenfell community to seek help if they feel overwhelmed when they give evidence to the public inquiry.
Survivors of the tower block fire, those who lost friends and family and local residents will be called on to share their memories of the blaze from today.
It will be the first time they have given oral evidence in the ongoing probe since May, when two emotional weeks of commemoration hearings in memory of the tragedy’s 72 victims took place.
Mr Ferdinand said he had been following the inquiry, which is focusing on the night of the fire in its first phase, and had found the stories that had come out of it so far “heartwrenching”.
He said: “When you go through those emotions again it will bring up things that you thought might have been buried inside you and you’ve hidden away, so they’ll come to the surface again.
“I’d plead with them not to try and hold on to them, to seek help and advice – and there’s so much help out there now, where people can go and just talk, and just talking sometimes can make people feel so much better. And because that facility is there now I’d implore people to look at using it.”
The ex-striker, who grew up near to the tower on the Lancaster West estate, said his impression was the community will only be able to heal when it sees justice.
He said: “People are still angry. Once this inquiry is out the way and we find out what the results of this will be, I think it’s not until then that we’ll really see what the healing process will be for people. Sometimes you need to draw a line under something, and I don’t think they’re quite there yet, and they won’t be until the inquiry is done.”
Meanwhile a fire manager has told the ongoing inquiry that he decided not to beckon to residents at the windows of Grenfell Tower after the advice to “stay put” was changed because he feared it would be misconstrued as encouraging them to jump.
Dave O’Neill learned that two people had plunged from the high-rise shortly after he arrived at 2.15am.
Mr O’Neill, whose role involved identifying safety hazards and briefing safety officers on the night, remembered having a discussion with the-then incident commander about the change in advice from “stay put” to “get out if you can”. The officer told his superior this was “essential” because of the number of faces they could see at the building’s windows, the public inquiry into the blaze was told.
Asked what means he had to communicate the new advice to trapped residents, he said: “I didn’t, other than the loud hailer we had at our disposal on the walkway. That was being conducted by people within the building.
Some 71 people died on June 14 last year, with a 72nd resident perishing months after the fire. The inquiry, being held at Holborn Bars, central London, has been hearing its last day of firefighter evidence.
I’d plead with them not to try and hold on to them, to seek help and advice. Ex-footballer Les Ferdinand’s advice to Grenfell community on their memories and emotions.