Grenfell Tower was turned into a “death trap” by a dangerous and reprehensible refurbishment carried out by Kensington and Chelsea council and the local tenant management organisation (TMO), the inquiry into the fire has been told.

The accusation came as commercial firms responsible for the work came under pressure to end their effective silence and participate more actively in the investigation.

On the ninth day of the inquiry, Danny Friedman QC, speaking on behalf of law firms representing survivors and the bereaved, said his clients were watching the inquiry with “calm rage”.

Cladding fitted to the outside of Grenfell Tower was lethal, he said. “In the second decade of 21st-century London, governed by a regulatory framework designed to ensure fire safety, a local authority instigated and oversaw the refurbishment of a social housing, high-rise tower block in such a way as to render it a death trap.

“The royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the tenant management organisation did this using public funds paid to an array of contractors and subcontractors – none of whom have yet taken any responsibility for what happened.”



The building works were “obviously dangerous, reprehensible and contrary” to regulations, he said.

“Residents and many people told them that this would happen but they were fobbed off and certainly not treated as equals. Seventy-two people died. Those who escaped owed their survival to chance rather than as a result of assessments or contingency planning by the fire brigade.”

He said the fire service failed to realise quickly enough that this was a “fire that could not be fought and required evacuation that could not be delayed”.

Play Video 2:33 Video timeline shows how the Grenfell Tower fire unfolded

Friedman drew attention to a blog published two years ago by Edward Daffarn and Francis O’Connor, of the Grenfell Action Group, in which they concluded that “only an incident that results in serious loss of life … will allow the external scrutiny to occur that will shine a light on the practices that characterise the malign governance of [the Kensington and Chelsea TMO].”

Stephanie Barwise, counsel for the same group of law firms, focused on the flammability of the material used in the cladding and refurbishment: “Our understanding is that the ignition of the polyethylene within the cladding panels produces a flaming reaction more quickly than dropping a match into a barrel of petrol.”

She added: “The insulation used to line the original concrete wall of Grenfell was predominantly the product Celotex RS 5000 … All the insulation was supposed to be of limited combustibility, or class A2, but Dr Lane [the inquiry’s expert chartered fire engineer] finds none of it was.



“The sandwich infill panels between windows were Aluglaze, the white aluminum panels with blue styrofoam filling … which ignite at 356C and for which no public fire performance test evidence has been supplied.”

Barwise pointed to previous examples of cladding fires on high-rise buildings around the world. “Since the turn of the century, both internationally and in the UK, fires involving external cladding systems have become almost the archetypal form of mass fire disaster,” she said.

“This fact put construction and fire engineering professionals on notice of the imperative to develop their risk assessment systems accordingly; and also ought to have informed fire brigade contingency planning. Industry openly acknowledges that polyethylene equates to petrol.”

Regarding the building contractors, Barwise said: “Despite their words of condolence to the victims, these corporates have no desire to assist this inquiry, even though their participation could save lives in the immediate future.



“The corporates’ silence deprives the families of the degree of resolution and understanding to which they are entitled, and has only served to increase their pain and uncertainty. It is inhumane to remain silent when so many seek understanding and answers: answers which are within the corporates’ gift.”

Before its refurbishment, Barwise noted, Grenfell was constructed of virtually incombustible concrete.

Sam Stein QC, representing another group of survivors and residents, told the inquiry: “The loss of life was wholly avoidable.... The very safety system [advising residents to stay put] that was meant to preserve life had been perverted into a fire killing system.”



Stein said the fire safety consultants used for the refurbishment, Exova Warrington, had advised that there would be “no adverse impact” on the spread of fire by the refurbishment. How could that be, he asked?



The TMO, he continued, managed 10,000 homes yet seemed to be waiting for the inquiry to tell it why the tower was wrapped in combustible material.

Pete Weatherby QC, representing other survivors and residents, said that in 1999 the Commons regional affairs committee had written to local authorities warning them about the dangers of external cladding on towers.

And last year, he said, the London Fire Brigade wrote to London councils after a fire at the nearby Shepherd’s Court tower warning that cladding had had an impact on fire safety measures.

The “stay put” advice given by the LFB should have been abandoned earlier than it was, Weatherby stressed.

“As early as 1.08am, the residents at Flat 26 [above where the fire broke out] said their flat was on fire. By 1.12am, flames were licking up the building and the incident commander said the cladding was burning ‘like magnesium’, sparking and spitting.”

The solicitor Imran Khan QC, who also represents the bereaved and survivors, called on the inquiry to expand its remit to consider whether race, religion and social class played a part in events surrounding the fire.

“The question that we might want to ask and have answered is whether RBKC (Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea council) and TMO and its associates were guilty of institutional racism,” he said.

“These features might have been at play because of the background of the residents of the tower. Ethnic communities are over-represented in tower blocks around Britain.”

Earlier, a lawyer for the Metropolitan police told the inquiry that the scale of the criminal investigation was “unprecedented and extremely demanding”.

Jeremy Johnson QC said the investigation was going according to schedule, and he revealed that the building would cease to be a crime scene by July or August.

After the hearing a spokesperson for Exova said: “Exova did not select, test, review or approve the cladding systems that were finally chosen and installed.”