Campaigners have taken inspiration from the Oscar-nominated drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri to highlight what they say has been “a lack of progress” in the Grenfell Tower fire investigation.

Members of the Justice 4 Grenfell group paraded billboards emblazoned with the words “71 dead”, “And still no arrests?”, “How Come?” around central London locations in an attempt to keep victims of last June’s tower block blaze “in the national conscience”.

The protest mirrors one carried out in the film, which stars Frances McDormand as a mother seeking to force local law enforcement into properly investigating the murder of her teenage daughter.

In a statement posted on the Justice 4 Grenfell website, the group accuses the government of similar inaction in their investigation into the blaze. “Eight months on from the tragedy of the Grenfell Tower, the issue is being ignored,” it reads. “71 people died in the Grenfell Tower. And still no arrests. And still 297 flammable towers. And still hundreds of survivors are homeless. And still they are not represented on the inquiry. And still there is no justice.”

Photograph: Jeff Moore/Justice4Grenfell/PA

The billboards, which were mounted on lorries, were spotted at venues including St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster, before coming to a halt at a community gathering outside the tower on Thursday afternoon.

Speaking to Vice at the gathering, the Justice 4 Grenfell campaigner Yvette Williams said that she hoped the billboards would help keep the incident in the public eye. “We were told that even as the public inquiry is ongoing, there was going to be an interim report by Easter,” she said. “Now that’s not happening. We want the truth. We want prosecutions. People up and down the country need to feel safe in their homes. None of that is happening. We think they’re playing with time, hoping that the story will be downplayed.”



In December, Cressida Dick, head of the Metropolitan police, said that the investigation into the fire was unlikely to be completed until 2019 at the earliest due to the amount of evidence that needed to be reviewed.