AS the survivors of the Grenfell tower fire walked silently through London on Saturday, the desire for justice for the 72 dead had not dimmed.
When a Netflix documentary about the disaster is released this week, its revelations are sure to only increase the sense of anger.
Police man a security cordon as a huge fire engulfs the Grenfell Tower early on June 14, 2017[/caption]
Firefighters extinguish the last of the horrific blaze that claimed 72 lives[/caption]
Eight years on from the fire, which Grenfell inquiry chairman Sir Martin Moore-Bick called “avoidable”, no one has been charged with a criminal offence.
Who knew what about the risk of installing flammable cladding on the 1970s 24-storey concrete block in West London will be key to the ongoing police investigation.
Even now secrets are emerging.
The makers of new Netflix documentary Grenfell Uncovered had to go to court in the United States to get hold of unredacted emails that reveal the president of the cladding firm behind the tower knew the material was dangerous two years before the fire.
The internal emails are reported to reveal that Diana Perreiah, a top executive at US manufacturing firm Arconic, was aware that its highly flammable cladding should not be put on tall buildings and that it had been sold for use on the west London tower.
Eddie Daffarn, a survivor of the Grenfell Tower fire, told The Sunday Times, who saw the emails: “These new documents are a smoking gun with the fingerprints of the senior directors of Arconic in America all over it.”
The search for truth was important for the film’s director Olaide Sadiq because her friend Khadija Saye was killed on the 20th floor of the tower.
They were both 24 at the time of the blaze on June 14, 2017 and had met on a scheme to support creative talents from less well off backgrounds.
Olaide, who grew up in a 18-storey council estate tower in south London, tells The Sun: “Khadijah was very, very bright, very, very sweet, very, very driven and she was someone who was really breaking down barriers in her field.
“I think she’s an example of a lot of the lives that were lost and a lot of people had very promising careers ahead of them, promising paths ahead of them that they never got to fulfil.”
Khadijah, whose mum Mary Mendy, 54, also died in the uncontrollable blaze, had her art work exhibited at the prestigious Venice Biennale in Italy just prior to her death.
But Olaide insists the documentary “isn’t about me” and instead her film focuses on other residents of the tower.
Baby tragedy
Grenfell Uncovered, which streams from Friday, hears from Marcio Gomes, whose son Logan was stillborn after wife Andreia was put in a coma, having been overcome by smoke.
Marcio had wrapped his family in wet towels to help them make their way down the stairwell from the 21st floor, having been told to “stay put” by the Fire Brigade even when the fire was spreading up the building.
Having escaped out with his wife and daughter Megan, he went back for his other daughter, Luana, who had collapsed on the stairwell in the toxic smoke.
They couldn’t see anything and Luana recalls: “I just remember stepping on so many bones. My dad is more behind me. He sounded like he was in front of me.
“I didn’t hear him speak or say anything back to me. All that I can’t remember, because apparently I had collapsed.”
The Grenfell Silent Walk around West Kensington on Saturday[/caption]
Firefighters from the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) form a guard of honour under the Westway flyover at the march[/caption]
Speaking ahead of the documentary’s release, Marcio said: “Ultimately, I’m hoping that people understand that this was no accident. This was very much avoidable, and these companies had a huge role to play in what happened.
“And I think people, especially in Britain – but this is a global thing, it’s not just in the UK – need to start shouting about these companies, need to hold them to account.
“Because these companies have a duty of care but they’ve ignored it completely.
“And I’m hoping that this documentary is a turning point that will then bring prosecutions and justice to the families.”
He added of the firms: “Avoid their products, get the message out there. These companies need to feel some pain and that’s not even close to what we’ve gone through.”
‘I’m dying, I’m dying here’
The film also hears the testimony of Omar Alhaj Ali, 33, who was rescued by firefighters from the 14th floor only to discover his brother Mohammad had been left behind.
He rang his brother to see what had happened.
Omar says: “My brother is screaming. The last conversation we had was like, ‘I’m dying, I’m dying here, that’s it.’ “
A desperate Mohammad, 23, attempted to escape the flame by climbing down sheets that he had tied together, but the civil engineering student fell to his death.
Firemen who fought their way up the deadly block to find survivors give similarly emotional accounts of the evening.
Chris Batchelor is clearly upset as he recalls how he spoke to Zainab Deen, 32, on the 14th floor, telling her: “We are coming to get you.”
But the firefighter was told by his superiors that it was impossible to get back up the building.
Zainab told him her two-year-old son Jeremiah had died from the smoke and “I want to be with him.”
Chris says: “I am still telling her we are coming to get you. I thought I heard her scream.”
‘The emails were shocking’
It is for the 72 victims that the quest for answers goes on.
Olaide has followed the Grenfell case since seeing the inferno on the news and learning that Khadija had been trapped inside.
She spent 18 months working on the documentary, speaking to relatives, survivors, experts and poring through documents.
Several different firms were involved in the refurbishment of Grenfell, which was completed in May 2016.
The Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) used to clad the building had a highly flammable material called polyethylene sandwiched between sheets of aluminium.
Olaide and her team wanted to dig further into what the French-based firm Arconic Architectural Products knew about the risks of their product Reynobond PE.
Arconic Architectural Products is a subsidiary of the US firm Arconic, so the Netflix team employed lawyers to argue that seeing everything was in the public interest.
Olaide says: “When you start looking into the cladding, you start to uncover an email here or a warning there. The emails were shocking.”
In his summing up, retired judge Sir Martin said that Arconic had “deliberately concealed from the market the true extent of the danger of using” Reynobond PE on a tower like Grenfell.
But Arconic, which has paid compensation to bereaved relatives, insists there was no wrongdoing on their behalf.
The company has said they “did not conceal information from or mislead any certification body, customer, or the public” and did not sell an “unsafe product.”
Sir Martin said there was no one cause of the disaster.
All of the tragic 72 victims of Grenfell[/caption]
‘Stay put’ order
Grenfell Uncovered also looks at the failing of the London Fire Brigade, which stuck to its “stay put” policy for too long on the fateful night.
Residents were told to stay in their flats, because it was assumed the blaze could not spread so quickly from flat to flat.
It also shows how David Cameron’s Conservative government failed to bring in tighter housing safety regulations, despite being advised to after a similar fire at Lakanal House in Camberwell, south London in 2009.
Labour has promised to implement the 58 recommendations from Sir Martin’s inquiry.
But the ‘stay put’ policy remains in place for most high rise buildings and thousands of flats in Britain are still covered in unsafe cladding.
Eddie Daffarn, 62, a resident who warned there would be a “serious fire” at Grenfell six months before the disaster, ends the film saying: “So much time has passed but so little has changed.”
Many survivors now want a jury to decide if anyone committed a criminal offence.
At the moment the Metropolitan police is still investigating.
Olaide concludes: “There’s definitely a very palpable upset and rawness that still exists in the community.
“People are definitely still angry, people are definitely still seeking justice and accountability for what they went through and what their loved ones went through.”
The final death toll
- Fathia Ahmed Elsanousi, Abufras Ibrahim and Isra Ibrahim (floor 23)
- Mohammed Amied Neda (floor 23)
- Hesham Rahman (floor 23)
- Rania Ibrahim and her two children Fethia Hassan, four, and three-year-old Hania Hassan (floor 23)
- Marco Gottardi (floor 23)
- Gloria Trevisan (floor 23)
- Raymond “Moses” Bernard (floor 23)
- Eslah and Mariem Elgwahry (floor 22)
- Anthony Disson (floor 22)
- Choucair family (floor 22)
- Nadia Choucair, 33, her husband Bassem Choukair, 40, their three children Mierna, 13, Fatima, 11, and Zainab, three, died along with their grandmother Sirria Choucair, 60.
- The Kedir family (floor 22)
- Hashim Kedir, 44, died with his wife Nura Jemal, 35, daughter Firdaws Hashim, 12, and sons Yahya Hashim, 13, and Yaqub Hashim, six.
- The El-Wahabi family (floor 21)
- Father Abdulaziz, 52, wife Faouzia, 41, and children Yasin, 20, Nur Huda, 16, and Mehdi, eight, all died.
- Ligaya Moore (floor 21)
- Jessica Urbano Ramirez (floor 20)
- The Belkadi family (floor 20)
- Farah Hamdan, 31, her husband Omar Belkadi, 32, and children Malak Belkadi, eight, and six-month-old Leena Belkadi, all died.
- Mary Mendy (floor 20)
- Khadija Saye (floor 20)
- Victoria King and Alexandra Atala (floor 20)
- Tuccu-Ahmedin family (floor 19)
- Mohamednur Tuccu, 44, his wife Amal Ahmedin, 35, and their three-year-old daughter Amaya Tuccu-Ahmedin, all died. Amna Mahmud Idris, 27, was visiting her cousin Ms Ahmedin at the time of the fire and also died.
- Marjorie Vital and Ernie Vital (floor 19)
- Debbie Lamprell (floor 19)
- Gary Maunders (floor 19)
- Berkti Haftom and Biruk Haftom (floor 18)
- Hamid Kani (floor 18)
- Isaac Paulos (floor 18)
- Sakina Afrasehabi (floor 18)
- Fatemeh Afrasiabi (visiting her sister on 18th floor)
- Vincent Chiejina (floor 17)
- Khadija Khalloufi (floor 17)
- Miah-Begum family (floor 17)
- Kamru Miah, 79, Rabeya Begum, 64, Mohammed Hamid, 28, Mohammed Hanif, 26 and Husna Begum, 22.
- Joseph Daniels (floor 16)
- Sheila (floor 16)
- Steve Power (floor 15)
- Zainab Deen and Jeremiah Deen (floor 14)
- Mohammad al-Haj Ali (floor 14)
- Denis Murphy (floor 14)
- Ali Yawar Jafari (floor 11)
- Abdeslam Sebbar (floor 11)
- Logan Gomes (floor 21)
- Maria del Pilar Burton (floor 19)
A spokesperson for Arconic Architectural Products said: “We have not seen the Netflix documentary ‘Grenfell: Uncovered’ and cannot comment in detail on it.
“So soon after the solemn anniversary of the Grenfell tragedy, our thoughts remain with all those affected, their families and friends.
“Foremost we continue to remember the 72 people who lost their lives. AAP, along with others, has made financial contributions to settlements for those impacted, and we support all efforts to strengthen regulatory oversight in the construction industry.”
