Victims’ families and survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire are to meet the commander in charge of the ongoing police operation and the coroner tasked with identifying the dead, in the first official meeting with investigators.

Tuesday evening’s meeting comes amid rising anger about the slow release of information. Nabil Choucair, who still has no clear answers about the fate of six family members who lived on the 22nd floor, said he was upset by the way that officials were trying to control the flow of news to families.

Survivors said they had been told that there will be no opportunity to ask questions in person at the meeting with Metropolitan police commander Stuart Cundy and Westminster coroner Fiona Wilcox. Victims’ relatives and Grenfell residents who escaped the fire were told at 8am on Monday that they would need to submit written questions for consideration by 11am that day and that only a selection of those questions would be answered at the meeting.

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Choucair said he had hoped that families would have been given the chance to ask, face-to-face, all the questions they wanted answered. “It is totally controlled. People just really, really want to know what happened to their loved ones,” he said.

“We thought we were going there to ask any question we want and that they were going to answer it. They will pick the questions that they want to answer, obviously. We are really upset at the way it is being controlled by whoever is in charge. We feel a lot has been hidden.

“We are looking for the answers; we are asking the questions but the answers are not coming,” he said. “It’s not fair on us; the family members and the survivors. I don’t think we have been treated very well. They haven’t given us much time to send in questions.”

A police spokesman later clarified that written questions had been asked for in advance of the meeting so that the responses could be prepared, but he added: “If people want to ask questions off the cuff that will be absolutely fine.”

Relatives remain concerned about the overall death toll from the fire and the amount of time it is taking to identify the dead. “The answers are not being given. People are asking the questions, but we are being told: ‘We still don’t know.’”



Choucair is still uncertain about what happened to his mother, Sirria Choucair, his brother-in-law, Bassem Choukair , his sister Nadia Choucair, and their three children, Mierna, 13, Fatima, 11, and Zainab, three.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Metropolitan police commander Stuart Cundy is due to meet Grenfell victims’ families and survivors Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

His family has been allocated a family liaison officer by the police, but still had no confirmation about the fate of their missing relatives. Police have not formally told them that their family members are missing, presumed dead. “We are praying for the best,” Choucair said. “It is killing us, more than anything, not being told what we should know. It is very unfair and very inhumane. We have to sit by every day and wonder what is happening. I can’t express how we all feel,” he said.

Police have told the family that the top three floors, where his relatives lived in two flats, remain unsafe to access. “It is very unstable, very insecure. They say it may take days, months, years to search. How can you tell a parent, loved-ones, a family: ‘Just hang on in there, hold on, one day we will know’? That’s not right. It’s not fair. Things should be done more quickly.”

Each family is allowed to attend the meeting, which is being held in a conference centre in Kensington, with five representatives. Choucair said he would go with his brother, sister and uncle.

Solicitors at Bindmans, the law firm which is representing a number of families, said other questions that relatives had submitted and hoped would be answered at the meeting include: how long the criminal investigation will take; who has been identified as a potential suspect; what offences are being investigated; whether police are taking steps to seize minutes from the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation meetings, correspondence between the council and residents and documentation in relation to building regulations; plus details about the inspection of the cladding and the general works at the tower.

There is also a widespread demand for detailed answers on the process of DNA testing and the recovery of bodies. “Families want information about why the identification process is taking so long,” said Anna Thwaites, a Bindmans solicitor.