We must see beyond the emotions of Grenfell to find the truth
ALL this week we have heard harrowing testimonies from the survivors of the Grenfell fire disaster, along with moving tributes from those who lost loved ones.
The public inquiry into the blaze has listened to mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and friends of the dead tell their heartbreaking stories.
The family of chauffeur Mohamed Neda told of his last phone message, in his native Afghan language: ‘Goodbye. I hope I haven’t disappointed you. Goodbye to all.’
Hisam Choucair lost his mother, sister, brother-in-law and their three daughters. He ran to the tower but was too late and watched helplessly as they burned to death. When he showed his phone footage of people trapped behind windows as the fire raged, 20 survivors attending the inquiry were so overcome they left.
The overwhelming sense of grief and injustice has been palpable. Grenfell was a terrible tragedy that claimed the lives of 72 people. The cause would seem to be a mixture of incompetence, dereliction of duty, possible illegality and callous cost-cutting.
It is the job of the inquiry, chaired by Sir Martin Moore-Bick, to sift through the rubble of charred evidence and deliver justice for the families.
Yet — given its already highly charged nature — is giving the families so long to air their emotions the best way to conduct what needs to be a clinical search for the truth?
It goes without saying that my heart breaks for those afflicted by Grenfell, but this week a letter to The Times caught my eye. It was written by Michael Jones, a solicitor who attended the inquest into the Aberfan disaster in 1966, when a landslide from a colliery waste tip engulfed the Welsh village’s primary school, claiming the lives of 116 children and 28 adults.
Mr Jones points out that the Aberfan tribunal judge, Lord Justice EdmundDavies, concentrated on the ‘responsibility for the slippage of the tip’ and ‘did not spend days hearing the testimonies of the bereaved parents’.
Nor were relatives given the chance to air their stories of loss at the inquest where the coroner offered them only sympathy and explained he already had the evidence he needed concerning the dead. Although the relatives were not pleased, Mr Jones says he always thought the coroner right. ‘Lamentation is not the purpose of an inquest,’ he says.
These are different times, of course — in contrast to the stoicism of that age. Today, the need for public expressions of grief and outrage seem to have become part of modern life.
But I can’t help feeling Mr Jones has a point. A degree of solace for the distraught families will ultimately come not from public grieving but from knowing why their loved ones died unnecessarily and who is to blame.
That way another appalling tragedy might be avoided.