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The first part of Martin Moore-Bick’s report pulls no punches. Phase 2 needs to prepare the way for prosecutions
Behailu Kebede did everything correctly. He woke to the beeping of a smoke alarm in his flat in Grenfell Tower just before 1am and saw light white smoke coming from the Hotpoint fridge-freezer in his kitchen. He dialled 999, asking the operator to send someone quickly. He knocked on his neighbours’ doors, alerting them to the fire, before turning off the mains electricity switch at the fuse box in the hallway of his flat and leaving his home for the last time, closing the door behind him. Within 30 minutes of his 999 call, flames reached the roof of the 24-storey building in west London, with devastating consequences.
How an ordinary kitchen fire failed to be contained, and how a modern building could have been “engulfed by flames and destroyed”, is the question at the heart of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 report, released on Wednesday. The report sets out details of what happened on the night, charting the actions of emergency services, the local authority and the deceased. It unequivocally exonerates Mr Kebede, someone who has been harassed by both tabloid and reputable news outlets in false narratives. Continue reading...