[distant siren wails]
[call handler]
[man 1]
- [call handler] Right, okay.
- [man 1]
[call handler]
[man 1]
[call handler]
[tense music plays]
- [sirens wail]
- [man 2] Get out! Get out!
We were first there.
Um, first on the scene.
- [screaming]
- [fire brigade siren wailing]
Words can't explain it.
It was just mayhem.
[woman 1] Get out of the tower!
[man 3] It felt like I was
in the middle of a disaster movie.
[screaming]
Uh, that one whole side of the building
was just, like, completely in flames.
I'd never seen anything like that.
[police siren wails]
[man 4] Wow. It's Towering Inferno, innit?
- f*ck.
- [man 5] How is that possible?
[indistinct shouting]
[man 6] When people saw
a disaster like this happening in the UK,
there was this sense of, "How could this
have been allowed to happen here?"
[man 7] It seems to me there's bits
of the building falling off now.
[sighs] I've never seen nothing like it.
It's like we're having our own 9/11, mate.
At Grenfell,
you had something completely different,
which I'd never seen before,
which was a fire
engulfing the whole building.
- [woman 2] Oh my gosh!
- [woman 3] How will someone help them?
And it was obvious that something
had gone desperately wrong.
[reporter 1] There are many questions,
most urgently about the cladding
on this building.
Arconic made the aluminum cladding
in question.
[woman 4] I do remember thinking
somebody had been grossly negligent.
What happened here? How did that get sold?
I don't understand that.
[man 6] Tests had been manipulated.
Tests had been hidden.
We've got so much evidence now
of really serious wrongdoing,
um, and still no one's been arrested.
[reporter 2] The warnings this building
was a firetrap apparently went unheard.
This is a police crime scene.
- What do we want?
- [crowd] Justice!
- When do we want it?
- [crowd] Now!
We want answers!
[woman 5] I always think to myself,
you know, "Why...
why did this have to happen?"
People losing their lives, you know?
Losing friends, family.
I just think to myself, "Why?"
[crowd chanting] We want answers!
We want justice!
We want answers! We want justice!
[sirens wailing]
[music fades]
[children chatter]
[news jingle playing on radio]
[reporter] BBC News at four o'clock.
This is Fenella Fudge.
[forecaster] Plenty of sunshine,
and this sunshine is going to stay with us
throughout the day.
The temperature, 24, maybe 25 Celsius.
We could even sneak...
[radio DJ] No change in the top three.
Luis Fonsi's "Despacito"
made it a month at number one.
It's now the longest-reigning
foreign language number one
in official chart history.
Despacito...
[woman] Back in 2017,
I remember quite a few famous songs
at the time.
"Despacito" was a big one.
Remember my mum kept playing it,
um, in the house and in the car.
...a besos despacito...
[on radio] It's your girl Esi,
and you're listening
to the biggest station in West London.
This is 100% the song of the summer.
- It's J Hus with "Did You See."
- ["Did You See" plays]
Came in a black Benz
Left in a white one
- [song plays in background]
- I'm just a hoodlum, uh, uh, uh
[mimics melody]
Yeah, yeah.
Did you see what I done?
Came in a black Benz
Left in a white one
I'm just a hoodlum
I came with the bonsam
When brothers wanna try some...
[Luana] I was excited
because I was going into year 8.
You know, it was becoming summertime.
It was becoming hot.
I would definitely say I was very bubbly.
Um, I was very happy.
Did you see what he did?
The black Benz...
I always wanted to do good in my grades.
[music continues]
Yeah, I was...
I was a good, happy 12-year-old.
[radio presenter] The A2 is building
westbound from Eltham towards Kidbrooke.
Northbound traffic on the Blackwall Tunnel
southern approach is building...
[Luana] I do remember later on that night,
we just went out for dinner.
[suspenseful music plays]
[man 1] By the time we drove back,
it might've been about 11:30.
And then I got a text from a friend,
"Fancy going on Xbox?"
Played a few games.
Said, "Oh, I've got work tomorrow."
Switched off and went to bed.
So, yeah, it was as simple
as that, really.
[forecaster] Feeling very warm again,
with a top temperature of 26 Celsius,
79 Fahrenheit.
[man 2] I think I went off to bed
around midnight.
I was, uh, sleeping in the gym
around that time,
just because I didn't like
sleeping in the dorm... [chuckles]
...um... with a load of smelly firefighters.
- [music stops]
- [phone line ringing]
[line ringing, clicks]
[call handler]
- [uneasy music playing]
- [man 3] Vio!
[man 4] Madness.
[alarm bell ringing]
[David] The bells went down
at about five to one.
[alarm continues]
[siren blaring]
So, being the local station
at North Kensington,
Grenfell Tower is on our grounds.
[sirens approaching]
On arrival, we saw some smoke
coming out of a window,
which we knew was where the fire was.
We, uh, made our way into the tower.
The two, um, firefighters got ready
in all their breathing apparatus.
[ascending footsteps plodding steadily]
You could hear 'em breaking the door down,
and then they entered the flat.
[door crashes]
It was your everyday kitchen fire,
which they managed to put out
quite quickly.
[fire extinguisher whooshing]
As you do after you've put the fire out,
you use your thermal imaging camera
to have a look around to check,
make sure there's no hot spots.
And that's when they noticed
the droplets of flame dripping,
and they realized
that the fire had got out.
[low, disquieting music playing]
I've sent the second crew in
to back them up.
I've been to other fires
where the fire has got into a flat above.
Although it was unusual,
it wasn't, um, beyond possibilities
that the fire could, um,
move up to the flat above.
So I had no reason to believe
we wouldn't soon be
going back to the station
to carry on our night shift.
I'd got to the ground floor
where I met a young girl
who explained to me
that her little sister,
um, was on the 20th floor
and was it all right for her
to go up and get her?
She told me her name was Jessica.
I thought I would quickly go up
and bring her little sister down to her
and then carry on with what I was doing.
- [elevator clatters]
- I wasn't worried at all.
I pressed the 20th floor...
[elevator whirring]
...and, uh, suddenly the light came on
on the 15th floor.
[automated voice] Fifteen.
- [David] The doors opened...
- [door clatter]
...and a huge rush of black smoke
just filled the lift.
I'm in trouble here. I need to get out.
I need my breathing apparatus, for one,
and I need to get down as quick as I can
to get this, um, girl out of her flat.
[tense music plays]
[reporter 1] The breaking news
this morning that a major fire
has engulfed a tower block in West London,
and it's been confirmed as Grenfell Tower.
[reporter 2] Questions about
how a building
that is of a concrete construction
could have been
engulfed by flames so quickly.
[man 1] Get out! Get out!
[man 2] The thing went up in seconds.
Just going up and up and up and up.
I never seen nothing like it.
It was like something
out of a Hollywood disaster movie.
- [faint sirens wail]
- [screaming]
[distant siren wailing]
[man] I've been writing about Grenfell
for seven years.
If you added up
all the articles I've written,
it would be over 1,000 by now.
[keyboard clacking]
When people saw a disaster like this
happening in London, in the UK,
there was this sense of,
"How could this have happened here?"
Because it shook people's sense
of the country they live in, I think,
that that was a possibility here.
It's changed my life, really.
There was my career up until Grenfell,
and then there's my life since,
and it's completely different.
I'd only been the news editor
for, um, about five or six months,
which is kind of... a bit of a...
bit of a throw-in at the deep end.
I think everyone probably remembers
the first time they saw those images.
[man 1] To be honest,
you would not think a cement building...
[Peter] I think in the aftermath
of a fire like Grenfell,
there's a desire, I think,
among the media, I would say,
to find a simple scapegoat,
a simple narrative.
Someone whose picture
they can put in the paper.
Someone who they can paint
as the bad guy who made this happen.
The Daily Mail newspaper
ran a very aggressive piece
which named the owner of the flat
where the fire started.
[tense, rhythmic music plays]
There's a suggestion on social media
that it's something to do
with, like, Islamic terrorism,
when the guy is
an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian
who had a picture
of the Virgin Mary in his flat.
He was an Uber driver.
He'd lived in a flat on the fourth floor
of Grenfell Tower for about 25 years.
[man 2] It's the fourth floor.
Quick, quick, quick! Burning.
The police suggested
he go into witness protection
because of the level of harassment.
Because once The Daily Mail started,
all the other newspapers were trying
to get their story about him too.
He was a survivor, you know,
and a victim of what had happened.
He... he had no responsibility at all
for anything that happened
at Grenfell Tower.
- [reporter 3] Today is 14th June...
- [police siren wailing]
[Peter] I did have this sense
that something has gone
deeply, deeply wrong here.
So you wanna find people who understand
fire safety risks in high-rise buildings
and just wanna ask them
as many questions as you can.
[phone ringing, vibrating]
[man 3] I had got a phone call
early in the morning, and it was the BBC.
And then Sky News. That was bad.
So I went online to see the news.
I immediately saw a massive fire.
I've been investigating fires
in high-rise buildings for some time.
When I first saw the images of the fire,
I knew it was probably
because of cladding.
[reporter speaking over laptop]
[Guillermo] Very quickly,
we started to look into ACM,
which is a type of cladding.
ACM is aluminum composite material.
So you can see,
it's aluminum here and aluminum here.
And then in the middle of it,
the thicker, darker part, is the polymer.
Polymers are plastics.
All plastics... all plastics are flammable.
The polymer that is in the middle,
the most popular one is PE, polyethylene.
This happens to be a raw PE.
We see that, actually,
the material then becomes very flammable,
and it isn't safe.
[dramatic instrumental music plays]
The reason why
aluminum composite material is dangerous
is because fire spreads really quickly,
and it's difficult to put out.
[Peter] This is a building material
that's, by the 2010s, very popular.
It's in use in buildings
in every continent.
Millions and millions of square meters
of it are being sold.
There were many companies around the world
that were producing,
marketing, and selling ACM,
and one of them was Alcoa.
[man] You don't have to look far.
You're sitting in a hotel,
sitting on a plane, checking your emails,
there's a good chance
that the aluminium you're seeing
has come from Alcoa alumina...
[voice echoes, fades]
...Alcoa alumina, Alcoa alumina...
Alcoa was the Aluminum Company of America,
shortened to Alcoa.
Sort of one of the older and bigger,
historically, I would say,
prestigious corporations
in the United States.
A lot of products in different markets.
Wings for airplanes.
Aluminum panels
in the automotive industry.
[floor traders clamor]
[Sara] Very big on the stock market.
There was a feeling
that the stock value could be unlocked
by splitting up the company.
[female voice-over]
Arconic: Innovation, engineered.
[Sara] That's what became Arconic.
- [dynamic music playing]
- [applause, whooping]
[Peter] Arconic was a division of Alcoa,
and it was their French arm
that handled the sale
of the ACM PE cladding to Grenfell Tower.
[reporter 1] As investigators
assess the damage,
one supplier has been
thrust into the spotlight.
Arconic.
Arconic made
the aluminum cladding in question.
[reporter 2] Visible from miles away...
[Sara] When the fire happened,
I found out Arconic had been involved,
and I can remember thinking,
"I really hope
they didn't put polyethylene panels."
Because it's a petroleum-based product,
it's gonna burn,
and it's gonna burn vigorously.
So on a high-rise building,
thinking about when you have
something that is highly flammable,
people don't have the time to evacuate.
[reporter 2] Families had been
sleeping here.
Some were still trapped inside.
[Sara] And then later on,
it came out in the news
that it had been the polyethylene panels.
How did this get sold?
Why was it sold? We wouldn't have
sold it that way in North America. Um...
How... how did this happen?
[siren wails]
[reporter 2] Behind each window
was a home, many completely incinerated.
[heavy-duty vehicle beeping]
[train rattling]
[man] When I was offered Grenfell,
I was slightly apprehensive
about living in a tower block.
- [light, idyllic music plays]
- [birds chirping]
[man] But my dad had always told me
that you'll know
when you walk into a property
whether it's for you or not.
I definitely had that feeling
when I walked into 134 Grenfell Tower.
I did actually fall in love with it.
[music continues]
[Marcio] I was at work,
got a call from Andreia.
She was like, "Yeah, I've got news."
I said yes.
We were gonna make, um...
make a home, really.
Like, our permanent home.
[uplifting calypso music plays]
[Luana] I think I was either two
or just about to turn two
when we moved there.
So, I... Like, I say Grenfell was my home.
From my bedroom window,
I would always see the London Eye.
I felt lucky, in a way,
because we were getting,
like, a bird's-eye view,
and obviously,
not a lot of people get that.
- [music fades]
- [children clamor playfully]
[flames roar]
[man 1] Oh. Oh my days, man.
[Marcio] So we were sleeping.
Now, when you're sleeping
and you hear constant commotion,
it's not one thing that wakes you up.
It's constant commotion.
- [falling debris clattering]
- [sirens wailing]
[pounding on door]
[light switch clinks]
At that same time,
our neighbor banged on our door.
Literally, bang, bang, bang.
So Andreia got up to open the door.
It was Helen and her daughter, Lulya.
They were like,
"There's a fire! There's a fire!"
And I said, "Come in.
Let's try and figure out what's going on."
[Luana] I remember
my neighbor was waking me up,
and obviously, I thought that was weird.
Why are you here
in the middle of the night?
I was very confused.
And then she told me
that there was a fire.
My sister Megan, she was still sleeping.
I asked my mum if I should wake her up,
and my mum said, "No, not yet,
just in case, you know,
there's no need to."
You know, I thought the fire was just
gonna stay in that flat and that was it.
[fire alarm blaring]
[Marcio] I was trying to look
out the window from the 21st floor.
All I can see was the lights
from the, uh, fire brigade.
- [clattering]
- [indistinct chatter]
Yeah, I felt everything was gonna be okay.
I... I didn't feel in danger, um, at all.
And I still didn't really...
[inhales deeply]
...comprehend the scale of the fire.
[call handler] Anyone with LFB?
Anyone with LFB receiving? Over.
[onlookers chattering]
[David] I knew that I needed
to find this little girl, Jessica.
I was really worried,
'cause smoke was everywhere,
and this little girl's on her own.
[hurried footsteps descending]
Ran down the stairs.
Don't remember passing anyone else,
any public or firefighters.
I got to the ground floor.
[man 1 over comms] Receiving.
[David] It was pandemonium by this time.
[man 2] Bravo Sierra One, receiving...
[David] A lot of chat on the radio.
[call handler] Confirm your location...
[David] Firefighters
in breathing apparatus waiting to go in.
[call handler] Units, just make way.
Just make way. Update us.
Got my BA set
and kind of jogged into the building.
- [suspenseful music plays]
- [footsteps ascending]
When I saw two firefighters
from my station,
I explained that Jessica
was on the 20th floor
and we need to get up there
to get her out.
We looked for Flat 176.
The door was slightly ajar.
The flat was, um... filled with smoke.
[filtered breathing]
We searched the flat twice.
We were shouting. We was banging.
We was doing everything we could.
But we couldn't find her.
We desperately hoped
she had, um, left the flat...
[music fades]
...and made her way downstairs.
[woman] They're there!
They're waving their light!
[David] Yeah, that's what I hoped.
[onlookers murmur, chatter anxiously]
[woman gasps] There's someone
waving their light! Can you not help them?
[onlookers sobbing, gasping]
[Peter] In the UK,
we have this policy called Stay Put,
which is the belief
that we've built buildings in a way
that means the fire will stay in the flat
where it started for two hours.
[police siren wailing]
And the London Fire Brigade place
complete faith in the Stay Put policy
and this idea
that fires in UK tower blocks
never spread from flat to flat.
[low, ominous music drones]
But by 1:30 in the morning,
the fire has started to enter
dozens of flats around the tower.
There's dozens
of individual flats on fire.
Despite these conditions in the building,
people are being told to stay put.
[Eddie] I was lying in bed,
and I hear my neighbor's smoke alarm
going "ping, ping, ping."
[smoke alarm pinging]
And then about, like, five minutes later,
I heard some shouting.
And at that time of night,
that really wasn't normal.
And, like, my first thought was like,
"We've been advised to stay put."
"I... I think what I'll probably do
is just, like, stay in my flat,
call the fire brigade."
- But at that moment, my mobile phone rang.
- [cell phone buzzing]
It was a neighbor of mine from downstairs
who'd already managed
to exit the building.
And he shouted at me.
He shouted at me in such a powerful way,
"Get out! Get out of the building!"
There was something so powerful
about what he said
that I just made the decision
there and then, "I'm gonna go."
And then joined
the kind of, like, small crowd
of some residents, some onlookers.
- [sirens wail]
- [hurried footsteps]
That fire was so violent.
That was the most violent thing
that I've ever, ever seen in my life.
[debris clattering]
[Marcio] My first phone call to the LFB,
I think I was still quite calm.
I didn't wanna try and portray any nerves
or being scared or anything
to... to the girls.
[solemn music plays]
Now we're in this flat,
Flat 183, 21st floor.
I'm here with my pregnant wife.
Andreia was seven months pregnant
with a baby boy.
She's asthmatic.
I remember them saying
they were speaking to the command center
and would send help.
I said it to the girls,
"Let's just be prepared to go,"
'cause the idea was as soon as
they bang on the door, we're getting out.
[Luana] I know my dad
called them multiple times.
They were telling us to stay inside.
But the fire was getting closer,
so it didn't make no sense.
[man] Yeah, we got movement.
[Luana] I remember me and my mum,
you know, kept telling him, you know,
"Call them back. Call them back."
- [woman 1] Oh my gosh!
- [woman 2] How will someone help them?
[sobbing] Please.
- [woman 1] Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!
- [woman 2] Can you help them?!
[music fades]
[reporter] Central to the tragedy
of Grenfell, flammable cladding. [echoing]
The cladding made by Arconic,
a multinational corporation.
[rhythmic, intriguing music plays]
[Peter] In September 2007,
Arconic's marketing manager,
a guy called Gerard Sontag,
took a corporate trip
to an industry conference in Norway.
[presenter] ...LDPE. This is a low-density...
[Peter] One of the presentations
given at that conference
was about aluminium composite material.
[presenter] ...with a thin layer
of aluminium...
[Peter] About how dangerous
this product was.
[presenter] Aluminium coating
is usually only...
[Peter] And it actually compared it
to sticking a petrol tanker
to the outside of a building.
[presenter] Once the composites are...
[Peter] So it's about as clear
and stark a warning as you can imagine.
[presenter] ...composite material
will start to fall...
[Peter] There's a member of Arconic's
senior team sitting in the audience,
listening to this presentation.
[presenter] ...smoke can be seen for miles.
[Guillermo] He came back from this
quite frightened,
knowing that Arconic was selling
the flammable version of the ACM.
[Peter] What he did was write
a very blunt warning to his seniors
of a fire involving this material
k*lling 60 to 70 people.
[printer whirring]
[Peter] And that warning was made in 2007,
ten years before Grenfell.
But unfortunately,
I don't think that warning would have
come to those people as a surprise.
Because Arconic had actually
already tested that product,
but they were keeping that result secret.
[rhythmic music resumes]
Arconic ran two tests.
One of them tests the product
when it's fitted to a wall
and hammered in with rivets.
The other one tests the product
when it's been bent into an L shape
and then hung and clicked into rails
which hold it onto the building.
What they would call cassette shape.
[Guillermo] The difference between rivets
or cassettes is mostly about aesthetics.
And what we have learned is that
the cassette one, by bending the ACM,
it allows a pool of the fire drips
to accumulate.
And that creates a massive fire
at the bottom of the cassette,
and it happens every one of the cassettes.
[melted plastic hisses]
[Peter] It burns ten times as quickly.
It releases seven times as much heat,
three times as much smoke.
[Guillermo] Arconic reacted in a way that,
instead of embracing the results,
learning from them and delivering safety
to people through their products,
they pretty much did the opposite.
And I wish they had acted on it.
In 2011, Arconic did another test
of the ACM cladding.
What they discovered was a very fast,
very large fire that had to be stopped.
[Peter] Claude Wehrle was
a technical manager at Arconic
during this period...
[sent email whoosh]
...and actually, ironically enough,
a volunteer firefighter.
So the laboratory emailed Claude,
and they said,
"Hello, Mr. Wehrle. We have performed
a test on your reference."
[keyboard clacking]
"Note:
Fall of large pieces of the small wing,
widespread fire on the surface,
reaching critical values,
resulting in the termination
of the ongoing test."
[tense music drones]
If a product fails a test,
you contain product or you stop product,
you stop production.
You don't let anything else
go to the customer.
You would never ignore and walk away.
[unsettling music plays]
Nothing changed. They kept selling it.
[Peter] There's an internal Arconic email
where they say,
"The grade of the panel
following the test today is an F."
Which is just uncategorized.
It'd be ungradable.
And then just the word "oops."
[keyboard clacking]
[sent email whoosh]
[music fades]
[Peter] They learned that once you bent
this product into a certain shape,
you were gonna get
this terrible result in a fire.
And, unfortunately, that is the shape
that it ended up being used in
on Grenfell Tower.
[indistinct chatter]
[man] The most thing that I used to love
is having my coffee
next to my window in Grenfell Tower,
listening to different types of music
with my brother, Mohammad.
["Bali Ma'ak" by Lena Chamamyan plays]
[man] That life is very peaceful.
[music continues over radio]
The tower used to look nice.
I was like, "Okay, I mean,
that's a good place. Let's move there."
So me and my brother, Mohammad,
moved to this apartment
around September 2016.
[music continues]
Me and Mohammad,
we had just one year, like, between us.
[mellow, instrumental music plays]
We were very close.
[camera shutter clicks]
He was my best friend, I would say,
not just my brother.
[shutter clicks]
I managed to get into university.
As well, the same for my brother,
Mohammad.
Then we managed to find a job.
[laughter]
We were... we were happy together.
We were happy in that apartment.
- [music stops]
- [whoosh]
[sirens wailing]
[Omar] That night,
I started to hear some noise.
People outside screaming,
ambulance cars, police cars.
[police siren wails]
Straight away, I left my room,
and as soon as I left my room,
I saw as well
my brother in the corridor area
saying, "Omar, I can smell smoke."
- [tense music plays]
- [smoke alarm ringing]
We had our pajamas on.
We were like, "Let's leave."
As soon as we opened the door,
we were shocked by the amount
of the smoke in the corridor.
[alarms blaring]
[distant indistinct voices]
- [coughs]
- [door slams]
We went to the windows.
We are, like, shouting to the people,
saying, "Hey! Hey! Help!"
[tense music continues]
Police or fire brigade told us,
like, "Stay. We are coming to you."
We were like,
"Okay, they're doing something,
and they will come to us to bring us out
or, like, give us some...
something to protect us and then leave."
[sirens wailing]
Coming from Syria,
for me, like, living in the UK,
I was thinking
that I am in the right, safe place.
[onlookers chatter indistinctly]
[woman shrieks]
[music fades]
[children chattering]
[keyboard clacking]
[Peter] In the years
leading up to the Grenfell fire,
there were a lot of groups pushing
the government quite hard for change
in terms of building safety regulations.
And that was particularly
because of a fire in 2009
at a building called Lakanal House
in South London.
- [dramatic music plays]
- [sirens wailing]
[reporter 1] Firefighters arrived
at the building within minutes,
but the blaze was so ferocious,
it was hours before they reached
the bodies of the six victims,
which included two children and a baby.
[woman] It was a quick,
very fast, ferocious fire.
There was combustible
and flammable material,
um, used in the building's fabric,
which contributed to the speed of the fire
at the time.
Lakanal House was a huge opportunity
for this country to take notice
and to improve fire safety measures.
Our group was meeting
with various MPs in Westminster.
We did push for change as hard as we could
without physically door-stopping them
and grabbing them by the hand,
or even the neck. [chuckles]
I had to work out ways to prove
that the guidance relevant to fire
was not fit for purpose.
It was badly designed for use,
and there was, uh,
factually incorrect information provided.
You would have to start the document
at the beginning, then flip to the back,
then flip to somewhere in the middle,
and it was just awful.
[Peter] After the Lakanal House fire,
there was a coroner's inquest,
which resulted in the coroner
writing a letter to government
and to the London Fire Brigade
which called for change.
She said we needed to train call handlers.
The London Fire Brigade needed to work out
how to fight fires in a high-rise building
when they got out of control.
Government policy needed to define
when we switched away
from the Stay Put policy.
[somber music playing]
[reporter 2] Many sheltered
in their bathrooms,
and when they phoned 999,
the fatal advice was to stay put.
[man] Well, I think, with hindsight,
had the advice been to get out
earlier in the call
when the people were involved,
then that may have contributed to them
staying alive or being saved.
[music fades]
It's out there. It's a letter.
It's black and white, and it's clear.
The letter that the Lakanal House coroner
wrote to government was really important,
but unfortunately,
it landed at a really bad time.
[disquieting music plays]
[David Cameron] One of the key aims
of this coalition
is to massively reduce
the number of rules, laws, and regulations
that, frankly,
treat all of you like idiots.
We're gonna have a new rule,
which is that any minister
in my government
who wants to introduce a regulation
has to scrap one first.
Which we've now changed
to the "one in, two out" rule.
You've gotta get rid of two regulations
if you want to introduce a new one.
One of David Cameron's
driving political ideologies
was deregulation.
He believed that the state had no place
telling private businesses
what they should and shouldn't do.
We want to get out of your way
by deregulating, by cutting your taxes.
Excessive rules have given the impression
that we have a right to a risk-free life.
So, effectively, what he'd done was ban
new fire safety regulations
being introduced,
even if they were necessary.
[music fades]
[man] As the prime minister said,
we're going to release
some of our brightest,
most intelligent civil servants
to kick the living daylights
out of bureaucracy.
[woman] ...there is new legislation,
then perhaps micro...
[Peter] Eric Pickles was
the most senior politician
with responsibility for housing,
for planning, for building regulations,
and, for a time, some fire policy as well.
[Pickles] By dismantling interfering,
intrusive laws and regulations,
we can do even more for less.
- It's great to be here.
- Mr. Pickles.
[Peter] He wanted less regulation
on business.
So what the coroner was asking them to do
was increase regulation.
And internally, a civil servant wrote,
"Well, the law requires us
to respond to the coroner,
but we don't actually have to do
what she says."
And the way he phrased that was actually,
"We only need to respond to the coroner.
We don't need to kiss her backside."
And that civil servant was Brian Martin.
Uh, good afternoon, everybody.
Um, it was interesting...
[Celestine] He was certainly a character.
He did have an interesting manner to him.
He had a bit of a reputation
for being very difficult.
I joined the Civil Service
not 'cause I wanted to work hard.
- [audience chuckle]
- And so it came as a...
came as a bit of a shock
when, um, pretty much,
that's what we've been doing ever since.
[Celestine] Brian Martin had
more power than most MPs.
We all had to go to him,
and he was the gateway
through to government.
He was tasked
with the building regulations
with respect to fire safety.
[Brian] Got the strategy division
at the top.
I'd like to tell you what they do.
I haven't worked it out yet.
Um, but they're very busy being strategic.
[Celestine] In terms of pushing
Brian Martin to effect change,
we asked him what needed to happen.
And he did say to me
that government won't do anything
until there are deaths.
And he allegedly said
to colleagues of mine,
"Show me the bodies."
[helicopter blades whirring]
- [comms beep]
- [call handler 1]
[telephone ringing]
[call handler 2]
[Peter] The LFB are overwhelmed
in the call center.
The volume of calls is unlike anything
these call handlers
have ever experienced before.
[call handler 3]
[Peter] They're overflowing now
to other control rooms around the country.
That's what happens if so many 999 calls
are coming in at once.
[telephone rings]
[call handler 4]
But all of these call handlers
give the orthodox advice
to residents of tower block fires,
which is, "Stay put."
[call handler 5]
[call handler 6]
We know that, from the Lakanal House,
they could have realized
that this was the wrong call
for a high-rise building.
[man 1]
[Peter] And what they don't have
is a television.
There's a plasma screen TV in the room,
but it's not working.
So what they don't see at any point
is a visual image
of what's happening at Grenfell Tower.
All they have on their screen
is a line of information,
which says, "Fourth floor kitchen,
partially alight."
[telephones ringing]
[call handler 6]
[call handler 7]
[call handler 6]
[call handler 8]
[call handler 7]
[call handler 8]
[call handler 9]
[call handler 10]
[call handler 6]
[call handler 11]
[call handler 6]
[telephones ringing]
[music fades]
[telephone rings]
[siren wailing]
I can't remember the exact road
where I first saw the tower.
[breathes shakily]
But it was over to my left,
and fire coming up
one side of the building.
[man 2] How is that possible?
I don't ever remember
being in Grenfell Tower before,
so I didn't understand,
I didn't know the layout.
[distant frantic chatter]
[Chris] I was really focused on just
getting inside and doing what we could do.
We were struck
by how narrow the stairs were.
Firefighters were coming down
with casualties, people.
They'd call out, "Casualty!"
Every time we heard that, you're moving
into the corner of the stairwell
with your cylinder on your back,
trying to give as much space as you can.
And people are coming down crying,
coughing, spluttering.
Some conscious, some unconscious.
[footsteps]
[Chris] It felt chaotic.
It felt... like everybody was caught
a little bit off guard by this.
[Omar] After waiting,
the firefighters arrived.
So we're like, "Okay.
Uh, are we leaving now?"
He was like, "No, you need to move all
to the apartment next to you,
and we're gonna come back to you."
I remember, like,
as soon as I entered that apartment,
seeing a lot of people there,
including the resident of the flat
and his family.
I've seen Zainab
and her son.
Denis.
And then there was my brother and me.
Mohammad brought a Quran
from our apartment.
For some time, he was reading Quran.
He was like, "This is gonna help."
And it kept him, like, strong as well.
But we didn't understand
what's gonna happen next.
[sirens wail]
[Marcio] All I wanted, really,
was to be rescued.
Andreia was seven months pregnant.
She's also asthmatic, and so is Megan.
Just wanted an air tank,
some kind of mask,
so that we can... we can go.
I remember my dad, um,
filling up the bathtub with water
and, uh, literally just
putting in so many towels,
making sure they're drenched.
[Marcio] Each moment,
things was getting worse and worse,
to the point when I opened the door
to see what was going on,
it was just smoke.
[woman] Why are you crying?
You are crying.
[rumbling, crackling]
[door shuts firmly]
[Marcio] The smoke was
extremely thick, black.
Every time I opened the door
and... and tried to breathe,
it was just a gagging sensation.
Uh, couldn't...
It was, like, chemically-infused.
[low, unsettling music plays]
[door shuts firmly]
[Guillermo] Smoke from plastics
is particularly toxic. It's asphyxiating.
You breathe something
that will make you cough.
It will make you sick instantly.
It will quickly... make you faint.
You start to lose consciousness.
And you don't even realize
that you're losing consciousness.
[Chris] The smoke was starting
to get thicker.
It was dirty smoke.
This was very dirty smoke.
Couldn't see a hand in front of your face.
Torches weren't making no difference.
We were burning.
We were feeling extreme heat then.
None of it made sense,
why it was so extremely hot in there.
None of it made sense to me.
[indistinct radio chatter]
[man 3] This tower was redecorated
from the outside recently
as part of a council initiative.
[man 4] They've covered it
with, like, a kind of plastic paneling
to make it look neater,
make it look better.
[man 3] They suspect that that might not
have been a safe construction.
It's all right. They've been warned.
Just make sure no one else ducks under.
[music fades]
[woman] My brother, Raymond, aka Moses,
he lived on the 23rd floor in Flat 201.
- [drumming]
- [cymbal crashes]
[upbeat calypso music playing]
He was a real cheeky, cheeky person.
He had a beautiful smile.
When he smiled at you,
you kind of melted into his smile.
[music continues over record player]
Sitting...
[Bernie] Ray grew up in Trinidad.
He came to the UK
when he was 16 years old.
You know, calypso was part of his thing.
So, yeah, he was big in the carnival
until age, I guess,
with his arthritis, took hold
and he can't jump around anymore.
He lived in Grenfell Tower
for over 30 years.
Sitting in the park...
[Bernie] I did most of Ray's admin,
so I would either write or call
the tenant management organization,
known as the TMO.
If I had to sum up my relationship
on behalf of my brother
with the council slash TMO,
I would say it was appalling.
After all, he was paying to live there.
It wasn't a gift.
He wasn't living there free of charge.
[Marcio] We were kind of just being
treated as if we didn't matter.
Almost seen as, you know,
we're working class or poor.
But that was far from the truth.
You had IT consultants.
You had people that worked in NHS.
You had teachers. You had architects.
It wasn't a poor tower.
It was a working tower.
[rhythmic music plays]
[Peter] Grenfell Tower was in Kensington,
which, even in the context of London,
is an unusual place.
Kensington is both
one of the wealthiest areas of London
and one of the poorest.
The tower was an eyesore
for the affluent who lived in the area.
And I think it just kept
property prices down.
[Peter] Grenfell Tower was built
in the 1970s,
but it had not been well looked after
by the council.
There'd never been a major refurbishment.
This new, glossy school
and leisure center complex was being built
but it had this tower block next to it,
which didn't look quite so good.
And so they said, in internal emails,
that maybe overcladding Grenfell Tower
would be a good idea
because it would help the tower
appear less of a "poor cousin."
They were gonna overclad the building.
They were gonna
put new windows into the tower.
The windows really weren't
fit for purpose anymore.
The cladding came as a kind of...
like, a bit of a shock to us all.
I didn't even know it was called cladding.
- I don't even think I'd heard that word.
- No. Yeah.
[Peter] So when the architects
first designed the cladding system,
they specified a zinc cladding panel.
Um... and that would be
completely non-combustible.
It's just made of metal.
[Eddie] I attended pretty much
every single consultation meeting.
We were never, ever shown
hard, you know, copies
of what the cladding was gonna look like.
[Peter] The council went out to the market
to try and find the cheapest contractor.
In the end, the organization they found
was a company called Rydon.
During the refurb, Ray and I often spoke,
and he often said to me,
"The workmanship is really poor."
[Eddie] Myself and others
who stood up and questioned,
we were labeled rebels.
We raised concerns
with one of the senior managers
from Rydon's at that point
and said, you know, "How would you like it
if this was being done in your home?"
And he turned round to us and he said,
"If I was getting it for nothing,
I wouldn't mind."
That comment sums up
the whole way that we were treated
by Rydon's, TMO, RBKC.
We were scroungers.
We were getting something for nothing.
We didn't deserve anything,
"So just shut up
and let us get on with the work."
[automated voice] South Kensington,
change for the Piccadilly line.
[Peter] During the refurbishment,
the Kensington and Chelsea
Tenant Management Organization
would hold conversations with Rydon
about ways they could strip
even more money out of the job.
"How can we save every penny?"
[compelling, rhythmic music plays]
And one of the first things they did
to save that money
was switch that zinc cladding panel
for the cheapest cladding product
they could find.
And the cheapest cladding product
they could find
was aluminium composite material
with a pure polyethylene core.
And Arconic sold the cladding
for use on Grenfell Tower.
[keyboard clacking]
And I found out that, in 2009,
there was a fire
at an office block in Bucharest.
[siren blares]
And this alarmed
Technical Manager Claude Wehrle,
because it was a building with ACM on it.
He found images of that fire online
and sent them to his seniors.
The fire in Bucharest wasn't the last time
these warnings were raised.
[Guillermo] The industry were concerned
about the number of building fires
because a number of them
had this type of cladding.
[Peter] There was another fire,
this time in France.
And this one was, sadly, a fatal fire.
It k*lled a disabled woman
inside the building.
[sirens blaring]
[sirens wailing]
There were changes in France which meant
that the more combustible type
of this cladding
could no longer be sold there.
And there were other countries
around Europe
that brought similar changes in.
But Claude Wehrle's view was,
"We can still work in markets
which are not as restrictive."
And, unfortunately,
the UK was a market
that was not restrictive.
There were internal emails
where Arconic said,
"You can do anything in England
with this combustible product."
- [low, somber music plays]
- [machinery squeals]
[Sara] At the time
of the Grenfell renovation,
the technology was PE.
And then you had the FR material,
which was, uh, flame retardant.
In North America, there were
certain projects that called for the FR.
Particularly if it was
over two stories high,
you were gonna go for FR.
[Peter] The refurbishment
finally finished in 2016,
and the council were pleased
with the work they'd done.
A press release went out saying
that it was remarkable to see firsthand
how the cladding had lifted
the external appearance of the building.
But you now had 120 homes
covered in highly combustible plastic.
[Luana] I didn't think the building
needed any doing up.
It was just a concrete tower.
I mean, I felt safe
in that concrete tower.
So, you know,
I would think they would have put safety
in front of prettiness.
[Sara] Based on how I saw Arconic operate,
I would find it very difficult to believe
that anybody didn't know
that this was
going on that particular building.
[Peter] It would have cost
two pounds per square meter more.
Across the whole building,
that works out to about 5,000.
If you split it per flat,
it's about 40 per flat
to use the safer version.
But because there was
such a focus on saving money
and using the cheapest product,
it wasn't even considered.
[siren wails]
[Peter echoes] It's about 40 per flat.
It's about 40 per flat.
[Bernie] The first phone call I received
was actually from a friend.
She said, "There's a fire in the block."
"Where is Ray?"
[reporter] We have no word
on the number of people
who are in that building...
[Bernie] So I went downstairs,
turned the TV on,
and that's when I realized
what was going on.
I tried calling his phone,
and there was no response.
And all I can remember thinking
at the time was,
"Hopefully, Ray's apartment
is not affected."
"Hopefully, Ray will be okay."
[sirens wail]
I made my way down to Ladbroke Grove.
It was just a...
an inferno.
But I honestly believed
it would be dealt with.
Because...
it's the United Kingdom.
[dispatcher] With regards to residents
still in the block, their advice is,
if there's anyone on the phone
to someone who's still in a flat,
is to please try and escape
or get out by any other means they can.
[Peter] Stay Put was revoked
in the control room at 2:35,
um, on the incident ground at 2:47am.
By this point, there are over 100 people
still inside Grenfell Tower.
[David] I remember a senior officer
giving a speech to firefighters.
It sounded like a rallying cry.
"Listen, this is like nothing
you're ever gonna face,
but there's still savable life in there,
and we're gonna have to put you
in very dangerous situations."
- [footsteps ascending]
- [filtered breathing]
[Chris] We didn't have a clue
where we were.
We were shouting out for people,
and there was nothing coming back.
There was flashes of torches
as people were walking around,
running around.
And all of a sudden,
a firefighter appeared with... with a...
with a lady who was unconscious.
He was on his own with her.
He was visibly... distressed.
So we grabbed her.
We were, like, falling all over the place
with her as well.
It was so difficult to get your footing.
We got her back down to the ground floor,
and we passed her to paramedic section.
[emergency responders chatter]
[Chris] There was nothing
to wait around for.
It was a case of getting back inside
and trying to help save people.
Every time we breathed the smoke,
you're kind of breathing death.
Some of us used to open the door
to try to see if we can escape.
[indistinct shouting]
I remember my neighbor
was worried about his family,
so he started to put sheets together.
[man 1] He's made a rope
from his blankets,
and he's sent it down.
- Oi. There's another guy there as well.
- [man 2] Just been catching.
- [man 1] Bruv.
- [man 2] Just catching a dog.
He... he... he wanted to escape
using the sheets from the window.
He actually tried.
[overlapping shouting]
[Omar] We're very scared,
me and my brother, Muhammed.
Straight away, we pulled him in again.
Kids were crying, screaming.
And I remember Zainab crying, and...
and just, people were very...
Running around in the apartment,
scared, not knowing what to do.
But the hope was
that the firefighters will come back.
I was told that the fire was so intense
on some of the other floors,
residents had started to move up.
- Some residents rang Ray's doorbell...
- [doorbell buzzing]
...and at that point, his flat wasn't really
consumed with a lot of smoke.
[pounding on door]
He let quite a few people into his flat.
It was women and children.
Ray was registered as disabled,
but there was no plan in place to evacuate
disabled residents of Grenfell Tower.
He could see all that black smoke,
I think, every time he opened his door.
But he still let them in.
He still gave them refuge.
[alarm blaring]
It's my belief that Jessica
probably accompanied the other adults
into Ray's apartment.
Jessica and my granddaughter
attended the same school.
She knew Ray,
and she knew she'd be safe with Ray.
[siren wails]
[Marcio] I phoned LFB again to find out
what's happening with the rescue unit.
Where's the firefighters
that are coming to rescue us?
That time, they said, "Yeah,
I've spoken to you. You called before."
And I said, "Yeah, I've spoken to LFB
four times before."
[call handler]
[Marcio]
[call handler]
[Marcio]
At some point, maybe a minute or two
into that... that call,
I kinda just looked into my bedroom,
and all of a sudden, my window was alight,
and it just raced towards me.
[Marcio]
- [call handler]
- [Marcio]
[call handler]
[Marcio]
[call handler]
- [Marcio] Okay, okay.
- [call handler] Okay. All hold hands.
[fading] And get as much wet clothes...
So everything was, like...
everything was kinda in a rush. Um...
We covered ourselves with the blanket
that my dad had put in the bathtub, and...
I grabbed my dog.
And we just dashed it for the stairwell.
[Marcio over call]
[Marcio] The conditions in the stairwell
were horrific.
[over call] Go through. Go down...
I was coughing. Gagging a lot.
Let's go now!
- [call handler]
- [Marcio]
[call handler]
[Marcio coughs]
[Marcio]
[coughing, retching]
[Marcio]
[call handler] Just listen to...
I didn't have any idea where they were.
My expectation was they're in front of me.
[call handler] ...on their way up.
- [Marcio]
- [coughing in background]
Keep going. They're on their way up.
- [coughing]
- [Luana] My dad was behind me.
I kept hearing his voice,
like, behind me, you know.
He kept shouting, you know,
"Go on. Just keep going. Keep going."
[Marcio coughing]
[call handler] Just keep going, all right?
[Marcio] Girls?
[voice breaks] And I just remember...
I just remember
stepping on so many bodies.
[sobs]
[sniffles]
And then it got to a point where
I couldn't hear my dad anymore behind me.
He sounded like he was, like,
far in front of me.
Like, down the stairwell.
You know, I didn't hear nobody speak
or... or say anything back to me,
until that moment I heard Luana say,
"Dad!"
But at that moment,
I realized they're not in front of me.
They were behind me.
I just remember saying,
"I can't do it anymore."
[sniffles] Like, I... I can't carry on.
[suppressed sob]
And I just remember...
placing my dog down on the stairwell,
'cause I couldn't cope.
[sobs]
That was it.
That's... all that I can remember, 'cause...
apparently I had collapsed.
Everything just went pitch-black.
- [Marcio] I need to look for 'em.
- [call handler]
- [Marcio coughing]
- [call handler]
[Marcio]
[call handler]
[Marcio]
[call handler]
[somber music plays]
[woman] Oh my God.
They've allowed people to die,
for f*ck's sake.
[siren wailing]
[Omar] Suddenly,
our front door was opened.
[music fades]
So the first thing I saw
is, like, a firefighter.
And the second thing I saw is
our neighbor and his family just leaving.
And then I... I remember
someone pulling me from my neck
or from my T-shirt, taking me out.
- [tense music plays]
- [footsteps]
I could feel at that time the stair.
Someone was pushing me,
telling me to move again.
But I didn't want to move,
because I was looking for my brother
and for... for everyone else,
and I couldn't see nothing.
On the third floor,
I started to see a light again.
The first thing I did is to look around me
to see, like, "Where's my brother?"
And I couldn't see him.
I just called him.
I was like, "Where are you, Mohammad?"
He was like, "Omar, where are you?"
"Mohammad, like, they came to us.
They take me out."
"So I thought
they are taking you as well."
He was like, "No, I couldn't see anyone.
No one came to us."
"And I'm still here with Zainab, her son."
I said, like, "All of you still there?"
He said, "Yes."
[tense music continues]
I went straight to the firefighters,
I told them, like,
"My brother, Zainab,
they're all still there."
"Please, are you going upstairs?"
Everyone's telling me, like "Yes, yes."
[music fades]
[Chris] I walked back down
to the base of the tower.
And there's a guy there,
and he's on the phone.
And he's shouting. He's very animated.
"My girl's in there!
My girl's in there," he says.
"My girl's in there!
I'm on the phone to her now!"
[radio chatter]
[Chris] I took the phone off him,
and I said, "Hi, my name's Chris."
She tells me, "I'm on the 14th floor,
and I'm with my two-year-old son."
"My name's Zainab.
My name's Zainab, and my son's Jeremiah."
I said, "Okay."
"We're coming to get you."
"You can't get out that building.
We will come and get you."
I can hear Jeremiah crying.
[low, mournful music plays]
I go over to the Fire Survival Guidance.
And I said, "Look, the 14th floor?" Um...
And he says to me, "At the moment...
at the moment, we can't go past the 12th."
I was on the phone to Zainab
for about 25, 30 minutes.
Jeremiah, he's not crying anymore.
There was a point when...
she told me that, um,
Jeremiah's dead.
There was a point when she told me,
"Jeremiah's dead."
"I don't wanna be here no more.
I wanna be with him, with my boy."
[breathes shakily]
I said, "Come on, Zainab.
You stay with me, girl."
"There's people that love you,
that are waiting for you, you know?"
"You need to get out of this building.
We're co..." [exhales]
I'm still telling her,
"We're coming to get you."
I thought I heard her scream.
I thought I heard her scream.
Just completely out of nowhere.
And then silence.
I kept the phone on
for about five minutes more,
just in case.
[music fades]
[Omar] I was on the phone with my brother.
He's praying and... and speaking to me.
The last conversation we had,
uh, was like,
"Omar, I'm... I'm... I'm dying."
"I'm dying here. That's it."
[soft, poignant music plays]
"I could see Zainab dying
in front of my face, and her son,
and Denis as well."
"And I'm dying, Omar."
[sniffles, exhales]
[swallows, exhales shakily]
My brother was kind of saying bye to me.
[music fades]
[helicopter blades whirring]
[Marcio]
- [call handler] Come down from the...
- [Marcio]
[muffled anguished cries]
[Marcio]
[coughs]
[Marcio wearily]
At that moment, I figured out that Luana,
um, she'd passed out.
I looked down in-between the rails
on the stairwell, and I could see a light.
Very faint, but I could see a light.
[sniffles]
And I kinda thought,
"God, that must be a firefighter."
I quickly ran down, and I shouted,
I said, "My daughter's upstairs."
[Marcio over call]
Gotta get them out.
I've gone to go up with them,
and then I've had another firefighter
grab me from behind.
They went, "No, you need to go.
Keep going down."
[cautious footsteps]
I saw Luana being carried out,
but...
[voice breaks] I didn't know
where... where my wife was.
[smacks lips] Didn't know where Megan was.
[siren blaring]
I know Helen and Lulya
were able to get out.
They handed me over to the police.
They said, "No, can't promise anything,
but there's a pregnant woman up there."
"She's with another kid."
Without even seeing her, I kind of went...
[sighs] Like, relieved.
[sniffles] Um...
Then I quickly turned and saw, um,
Andreia was sitting... sitting by the tree,
and Megan was... was next to her.
Andreia asked, "Where's Luana?"
Of course, I knew where Luana was.
She was to our side.
Um...
They were resuscitating her.
And then we got put in one ambulance,
all together.
[siren wailing]
[Luana] Next thing I know, I woke up,
and I was in the ambulance...
[voice breaks] ...and I was
the only one on the bed.
[siren fades]
You know, I just kept thinking,
you know, "Why am I on this bed?"
Like, "I'm not the priority here.
If anyone's the priority..." [sniffles]
"...it's my mum."
[sniffles]
Because, obviously,
she was pregnant at the time.
[sobs, sniffles]
And then I just... I fell back asleep again.
[inhales]
And, yeah.
[exhales]
- [somber, expectant music plays]
- [siren wailing]
[reporter 1] Police confirmed
a number of people have been injured,
and an evacuation is continuing.
[helicopter blades whirring]
[reporter 2] So far, 12 people have died.
More than 70 others are injured.
[Eddie] We've now been here
for five-and-a-half, nearly six hours,
and not a single policeman,
not a single representative
from our landlord
or from the council has turned up
to speak to us.
There are people here who don't know
whether their relatives are alive or dead.
[responder 1 over radio]
621, where are you?
[responder 2]
[responder 3]
If we get all the missing people up
on the same window...
[Jackie] I came down to Ladbroke Grove,
I think, the, um, evening of the 14th.
And we had photographs,
and we were putting them up.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Bernie] It was desperation,
because there was no information
on where to go
to try and find your brother, your sister,
your mother, your cousin, whoever.
[crowd clamoring]
[woman] Where are the children?
[music fades]
[camera shutter clicks]
A week on since the Grenfell Tower fire
and many residents are still complaining
of a lack of support from the authorities.
Many are still sleeping
in the local sports center,
and some, reportedly, even in their cars.
[somber steel drum music plays]
We haven't met anyone from the council
who's actually come here.
We want someone
to actually tell the families
what has happened to their loved ones
that have gone missing.
[protestors chant] Out! Out! Out!
[Peter] I think immediately
there was a desire to see justice done.
[protestors] Out! Out!
I think it was obvious to the people
who lived in Grenfell Tower
and had lost relatives
that... there was responsibility.
This wasn't an accident.
- [woman] What do we want?
- [crowd] Justice!
- [woman] When do we want it?
- [crowd] Now!
[woman] We want answers!
[Peter] What people needed was clarity
from the local authority and support.
The basic human rights
that we all take for granted every day.
Food, shelter, clothing.
[man] People sitting out there
with no food, no houses, the lot.
People walking around lost in the streets,
sticking their kids' pictures
to their top.
No one's out here helping.
[irate shouting]
[reporter 3] Many are livid
at the government's response
to the tragedy.
[reporter 4] The convoy sped past,
carrying the prime minister.
Theresa May spoke to emergency workers,
but made no public appearance.
Theresa May steps down here
and don't come and see none of us.
[crowd chants] May must go!
[producer] Why didn't you
meet the community straightaway?
[Theresa May] My decision
not to go immediately
to meet members of the community
was because, I always felt,
had been to make sure
that those emergency services
had the resources that they needed,
had everything they needed
to do their job.
I realize now that, actually,
one of the issues for the community
and the survivors of Grenfell Tower
was the way in which authority
had failed to listen to them.
And I merely exacerbated that in... in...
by not going to see them first off.
[tense music plays]
[reporter 5] What began
here in London today
is a public inquiry
into the Grenfell tragedy
that claimed 72 lives.
[Theresa May] I called the public inquiry
so quickly
because I thought it was important,
given the scale of this tragedy,
it was important that we really
dug into what had happened.
[distant police siren wails]
[man] My role as lead counsel
to the inquiry was to be the public.
A curious member of the public
who sees there's been a terrible fire
and wants to know what happened
and why it happened.
[reporter 6] The public inquiry will look
at the events of the night itself,
including the response
of the emergency services.
[woman 1] I do solemnly,
sincerely, and truly...
I do solemnly, sincerely, and truly...
[Richard] The problem with the inquiry
was the emotional difficulty
and what one might call
the forensic difficulty.
The whole truth.
- [woman 2] ...truth.
- [David] ...the whole truth.
- [woman 2] ...and nothing but the truth.
- ...and nothing but the truth.
[Richard] The emotional difficulty one
came very early on
when I examined
the early arrival firefighters
all about what happened on the night.
I decided to go up
and, uh, try and get to the 20th floor
to get her little sister.
There is some context here
which I just need to show you
based on your statement.
Could you please be shown
page seven of your statement?
"I found what I thought was Flat 176,
but had to use my torch
and put my face
right up close to the door."
"I moved on to the next door
and saw that it was 175."
Did you... uh... knock on the door
or shout to anybody
who might be inside Flat 175?
[Richard]
- [David] Um, can I just say...
- [Richard] Yes, of course.
Um... to the... to the family
of the people in Flat 175, I'm...
I was... I was, um...
looking for another girl,
and I didn't know
there was anyone in there.
- [chairperson] That's... that's all right.
- [Richard] Thanks. Thank you.
There was a lot of failure,
um, at an institutional level
from London Fire Brigade.
There was failure, um...
on the ground as well, you know.
This operation didn't go well. Um...
But I think you've got to remember,
as well, the... the...
the pain that must come from being the one
who is tasked with saving people,
but not being able to.
That's a really hard thing.
Just that alone,
a really hard thing to have to live with.
[tense, intriguing music plays]
[chairperson] Welcome to today's hearing,
at which we're going to hear evidence
from the commissioner.
I swear by Almighty God...
[Peter] Before the inquiry,
one of the questions I had
about the London Fire Brigade was
why didn't they learn the lessons
from Lakanal House?
...and nothing but the truth.
[David] I learned that there was warnings
to the London Fire Brigade.
We knew that buildings had cladding.
We had no training on cladding fires.
And from all the training I've had,
we still, um... relied totally
on that Stay Put policy up until Grenfell.
And we... didn't really have a plan B.
Now, this is a...
um, a slideshow produced by the LFB.
[Peter] There were a lot of revelations
about the London Fire Brigade
at the Grenfell Tower inquiry, um,
and particularly about how much they knew.
And I think the most startling example
of that was a PowerPoint presentation
which went into a lot of detail
about the risks of cladding fires.
[Richard] Did you see this slideshow
at the time it was produced?
[Dany] No.
Can you explain why this presentation
was kept to a limited coterie
of LFB specialists so that even you
didn't see it, Commissioner?
No, I've no idea.
[Richard] This key document
had not been seen
by any of the frontline firefighters.
Suddenly, people realized
that this was an institutional problem.
This is not going to be the case
of individual firefighters
making mistakes on the night.
[David] If we had turned up to that fire
and had the knowledge to recognize,
"That is a cladding fire.
We can't stop that."
"So let's not try,
and let's evacuate the building,"
if we had that knowledge...
things could've looked a lot different.
People probably still would have died.
Would as many have died? I don't know.
[music fades]
[Peter] From an early stage,
some of the witnesses
that I was most keen to see
were those who worked for Arconic...
who had made the decision
to keep this product on the market,
despite the testing, despite the warnings.
I wanted to see them asked,
"Why did you do this?"
[reporter 5] Arconic is
a huge global American company,
but three of its employees
are refusing to give evidence.
I think we've seen
that the Arconic witnesses
that have chosen not to appear
at the public inquiry are, in my opinion,
nothing better than gutless cowards.
A UK public inquiry has the power
to compel UK citizens to attend,
but it has no power to do that
for non-UK citizens.
We didn't hear from people
like Claude Wehrle,
who did and do have
a lot of questions to answer.
[solemn music playing]
But there were emails that got released
in a kind of huge package of emails
that came from Arconic,
which included Claude Wehrle
using a phrase to the effect of,
"Oh my Lord. Don't release
that testing information to the client."
[music intensifies]
- [woman 1] Oh my gosh!
- [woman 2] How will someone help them?
[Peter] Senior people
in the company telling staff
to keep the true fire performance
of the product very confidential.
- [woman 3] There's babies in that block!
- [man 1] Where are the people?
[Peter] The emails sent by Claude Wehrle
saying, "We are not clean."
[woman 4 screams] Get out of the tower!
[Peter] What was being revealed
was just this huge corporate scandal.
[solemn music continues]
They knew that if this information
made it into the public domain,
people wouldn't buy their product anymore.
[music fades]
While investigating this, we discovered
that during the Grenfell deal,
a senior executive requested
a fire safety report on cladding products.
[tense music plays]
She learned that PE cladding was
unsuitable for buildings over 12 meters,
and that the product even carried
a risk of flaming droplets in a fire.
She was clearly told,
"The higher the building,
the stronger the fire resistance must be."
[keyboard clacking]
She was informed the company had sold
thousands of square meters of PE
for Grenfell Tower, earning 115,000 euros.
But there were no questions around safety.
[keyboard clacking]
This is the dark heart of,
sort of, corporate multinational culture,
you know,
where profit becomes so important
that everything else is forgotten.
[music fades]
[reporter] They're the companies
behind Grenfell.
Arconic.
Celotex,
makers of the flammable insulation.
Together with another firm, Kingspan.
All these manufacturers
heavily criticized for their materials
used on the construction
of Grenfell Tower.
[Guillermo] So in the inquiry,
I was asked to be shadow expert
for the victims and bereaved.
My role was to help the lawyers.
And I was called to go through
the documents in an intense process.
[reporter] It emerged that Kingspan
tested a product called K15 back in 2005.
But the product it subsequently sold
on the market was not the same.
You have Arconic doing this,
you have Celotex doing that,
and you have Kingspan doing that.
Show me a good example, no?
Show me a good person
doing the right decision,
appearing as the hero of the story.
There is no hero in the story.
The overwhelming cause
of the rapid fire spread across the tower
was the presence of the PE ACM cladding.
I thought, "Gosh.
Everyone is blaming each other."
The external fire was driven,
to an overwhelming extent,
by Arconic's polyethylene-cored
Reynobond ACM cladding panels.
If all these people are right,
then no one was to blame.
And that's the problem.
The conduct of Celotex and Kingspan
in assuring the market
that their products
could be used at height
was the critical causative failure
in the case of the Grenfell fire.
I would not put all of the blame
on any one company or any one individual.
Uh, it's... it's a systemic problem.
Why wasn't there one person
who stood up and said,
"We don't do this"?
You know, "This is not who we are."
[Richard] I think the inquiry revealed
that public safety was not as interesting
as the individual pursuit
of private profit.
My question was,
is it right that the TMO was looking
for the cheapest cladding it could get
in order to reduce the overall budget?
We weren't looking for the cheapest.
We were looking for something
that would achieve planning permission.
It's certainly true
that the relationship between the...
the residents of Grenfell Tower
and the TMO was not a good one.
This is a report
of an investigation report
on long-standing complaints
of the Kensington and Chelsea TMO.
"There are a number of tenants,
leaseholders, and freeholders
who feel aggrieved that their problems
have not been resolved by the TMO,
despite several years of complaining."
Is this a document
that you've ever seen before?
I don't remember it being sent to me.
And if it was sent to me,
I don't remember,
um, reading it in any detail.
[Richard] You could see
an inability to read the situation.
A kind of numbness,
a blindness evolved.
I want to ask you about a complaint now
by Mr. Daffarn about fire safety.
[Eddie] We wrote this blog
in, uh, November 2016.
"KCTMO: Playing with Fire."
"It is a truly terrifying thought
but the Grenfell Action Group
firmly believe
that only a catastrophic event
that results in serious loss of life
will shine a light on the practices
that characterize this malign governance
of this non-functioning organization."
Yeah, and we wrote that
six months before the fire.
[Richard] And your response
is on page one.
"I think Mr. Daffarn's blog
is scaremongering
and could be
quite frightening to residents."
[sirens wail]
We found out that our blog,
the Grenfell Action Group blog,
was being blocked on both the council
and the KCTMO's servers
so that staff couldn't see
what we were writing.
I did ask the head of Ito remove the block.
I felt it was unhelpful.
[Richard] Members of the community
were people to be managed,
rather than individuals with homes.
And I can well imagine
that many of them must have thought,
"What was the point?"
[sighs forcefully] "What was it all for?"
- [compelling, rhythmic music plays]
- [Big Ben tolls]
[Peter] When the inquiry first started,
I'd been very frustrated, personally,
by the government's refusal
to answer any real questions about this.
[reporter] The inquiry
called Brian Martin.
He was the civil servant
responsible for fire safety
for almost 20 years before Grenfell.
[Richard] "I put to him, 'If it happened
in the middle of the night,
the death toll was likely..."
[over laptop] "...to be ten to 12 times
the six people who died
in the Lakanal House fire.'"
"Brian Martin's reply to me was,
'Where's the evidence?
Show me the bodies.'"
Did you say to him, "Where's the evidence?
Show me the bodies"?
[Brian] I wouldn't have said that.
[Celestine] Brian Martin could have taken
a more decisive stance on fire safety,
especially after the Lakanal House fire.
Mr. Martin, we're now going to go
to the Rule 43 recommendations
that the coroner sent,
making recommendations...
[Celestine] But he perhaps
took a more, um, passive approach.
The private comment
that you only have a duty
to respond to the coroner,
not kiss her backside,
discloses your attitude
to the coroner's recommendations,
which would not tend to indicate
that they were being taken seriously.
- [Brian] Um... [hesitates]
- Do you agree?
Clearly, it's... it's an informal comment.
[keyboard clacking]
[Celestine] We tried, and we couldn't...
we couldn't effect change quicker.
For me personally, feeling like
I couldn't do enough beforehand
to prevent such a tragedy,
yeah, it's something
that I... I... I've been living with.
[Brian sighs]
[Celestine] They didn't want
to listen at the time.
Over the last few months,
I've been looking through the evidence.
Um... [sighs]
It became clear to me
that there were a number of occasions
where I could have potentially
prevented this happening.
As a result of that, I ended up
being the single point of failure
in the department.
That's... that's...
why I think we failed
to stop this happening.
For that's something I'm bitterly sorry.
[sniffs]
[producer] Do you agree with Brian Martin
calling himself
"the single point of failure"?
Hmm. Interesting.
Um, not necessarily.
[tense, rhythmic music plays]
There are others to blame,
from my perspective.
I swear by Almighty God that...
[reporter] Eric Pickles
was secretary of state
responsible for fire safety
before Grenfell.
...and nothing but the truth.
[Theresa May] I think it's important
for everybody who's giving evidence
in a public inquiry
to realize that the purpose
is to get to the truth.
And in giving evidence, I think
people also need to recognize that,
at the end of the day, this inquiry
is being held because people died.
Feel free to ask me
as many questions as you like,
but could I respectfully remind you
that you did promise
that we would be away this morning?
And I have changed my schedules
to... to fit this in.
I do have an extremely busy day
meeting, uh, people.
But this is more important than anything.
But I would urge you
to use your time wisely.
[wryly] Right.
[reporter] Lord Pickles
was repeatedly asked
about the Conservative Party's
drive to deregulate
and get rid of health and safety rules
in the years before Grenfell.
[Theresa May] The government at the time,
before I became prime minister,
was very keen on ensuring
that they, as far as possible,
were reducing the number of regulations.
I think what we see from the inquiry
was that too many people
just weren't looking at those regulations
perhaps with a sense of recognizing
the importance of them
in terms of keeping people safe.
[tense music continues]
[Richard] In fact,
your department was always subject
to the deregulatory agenda,
which led to a complete absence
of proper checks and balances
so far as concerns life safety.
[music stops]
Again, I think that would be unkind.
And I have to say, um, you know,
without getting too emotional,
I swore on the bloody Bi... Oh!
I swore on the Bible.
I'm a Christian.
And what happened in Grenfell
is there was regulation there,
but, sadly, it wasn't up to the purpose.
It wasn't able to do its job
because companies were able
to find a way around it.
[somber music plays]
[Pickles] But we should never lose sight
that this is not about...
[sighs]
...deregulation, "one in, one out."
Ultimately, it comes... uh, it...
it comes down to the nameless,
I think it was 96 people, who... who were...
who were k*lled in...
in... in the Grenfell fire.
It's... it's them we should think about.
As everybody knows,
72 residents of Grenfell Tower died.
Ninety-six was the number of victims
of the Hillsborough disaster.
That number 72 should sit with everybody,
if it's important to you.
If it's not important to you, then, yeah,
sure, it's something you'll forget.
You'll just mix it up
with another disaster
where a lot of working-class people died.
[somber music continues]
[Richard] Each and every one had a life
and an expectation of life.
This was a fire which had come
into their homes from outside.
And that, to me,
was an intrusion of universal horror.
[Theresa May] I think there are a number
of things that we all need to learn.
One of the key issues, for me,
was this question of a country
that... that felt
that there were a group of people
whose very housing
that they were living in
meant that they were, in some sense,
second class to others.
And we've seen that time and time again.
Authorities have treated people
like second-class citizens.
And I hope that,
coming out of the Grenfell tragedy,
we can erase that sense.
[somber music rises]
[reporter 1] 312 days
and 300,000 documents later,
the inquiry is over.
The chairman's report
will give recommendations.
For now, though,
all families can do is wait.
[music fades]
[Peter] There started to be
small gatherings of the community
on the 14th of every month
outside the tower.
And then it went to one march
every year on the anniversary.
It is a protest, as well,
from the community
that says we're still here,
we're still waiting for justice.
[David] I started looking
at, um, social media.
I noticed a message from a friend of mine
who I hadn't spoken to in a long time.
And then... [sighs]
...the realization was that I was...
I was looking for their niece.
[gentle, somber music plays]
But I think it slowly became apparent
that, um... that instead of going down,
she had gone up to escape the smoke.
And she'd gone to the top of the tower...
[inhales deeply]
...and died, um, on the 23rd floor.
[breathes shakily]
My whole world just fell apart.
[soft, mournful music playing]
[Jackie] He laid the women
and children on the bed.
And he would have been
the last to have died.
And his body was found
at the foot of the bed
where he was sitting on the floor.
Um, so we know,
and that's why we say
he was their comforter.
He was a...
decent human being.
He would have looked after them
to the end.
[Chris] I think about them a lot.
You actually... you actually found out about
the people we lost and we couldn't save.
Never done that before.
And that... and that was hard.
[Omar] He was left with no options,
just to try to escape from the window.
He tried to use the sheets
that were tied together.
However, I don't think
he... he made it all the way down,
so... he did fall from the window.
If you try to jump from the window,
it means you lost hope.
And I'm very angry with everyone
who was responsible for his death.
[music fades]
[Marcio] After the fire,
we were taken to King's College Hospital.
The doctors came and said
they... they needed to speak to me.
They said that they were gonna
need to make a call
between Andreia and the baby.
- [woman] I've ordered it online.
- Oh.
[Marcio] They said,
"In these circumstances,
we take the mother's side."
And I said, "Yeah, I understand
that's what you need to do."
That's when they said, um,
Logan had passed away.
[melancholic piano music plays]
[Marcio] Seventy-two people died.
Eighteen of them were children,
including my son,
who was the youngest victim.
[inhales] Um...
You know, they were all robbed...
of whatever they could have become.
[child babbling]
Once upon a time, there was
a boy on a boat.
He lived happily ever after. [chuckles]
- [piano music continues]
- [indistinct chatter on video]
- [girl] I wanna sing, I wanna shout
- [children clapping, singing along]
I wanna scream till the words dry out
So put it in all of the papers
I'm not afraid
They can read all about it
Read all about it
- [raucous cheering, applause]
- [piano fades]
[Luana] You feel guilty, in a way.
I feel guilty that
I'm here living, doing my life...
and they're not. [sniffles]
[reporter 1] Seven years
after the Grenfell Tower fire,
the final report into what caused
the disaster is due to be published.
[reporter 2] The inquiry has no power
to punish or compensate.
There's likely to be
separate criminal trials to do that.
[suspenseful music plays]
[reporter 3] We are just about
to hear from the chair.
[chairperson] Not all of them
bear the same degree of responsibility,
but all contributed to it
in one way or another,
in most cases through incompetence,
but in some cases,
through dishonesty and greed.
A damning final report
into the Grenfell disaster.
A catalog of negligence so complete
that it's almost unimaginable.
And it's that word "avoidable"
that really strikes you.
[reporter 2] What families want
is criminal prosecutions,
but they've been told
that's not gonna happen for years.
[woman] Their lives are on hold,
while those responsible walk free.
[reporter 2] The inquiry made
58 recommendations.
Top of the list,
a change to building regulations.
[children chatter playfully]
[man] I'd now like to introduce Pete Apps,
a journalist who has supported the fight
and call for justice in this community
ever since the fire,
seven years ago today.
Please give him a warm welcome.
Like many of the people here,
I've been coming to these silent walks
for seven years.
During each march,
72 names are always read.
But today I want to give you
another list of names.
They are the names
many want us to forget, but we will not.
[somber piano music plays]
So remember RBKC.
[Peter] Remember the London Fire Brigade.
[somber music plays]
[children chatter]
[Omar] To be honest,
I'm sure this could happen again.
But we still don't know
who's the people who's gonna be in prison,
so they're just kind of
making me lost now.
[somber music continues]
[Peter] Remember KCTMO.
[Eddie] So much time has passed
and so little has changed.
That's what Grenfell's about.
It's a story
of heartbreaking, unbelievable cruelty
to citizens in a country where I'm sure
we don't think we behave that way.
[Peter] Remember Kingspan.
Remember Celotex.
[Bernie] Until human life
means more than profit,
things are never going to change.
[Jackie] There are thousands of buildings
that still have the combustible cladding
on those buildings.
Remember Arconic.
[Bernie] Justice is not only the removal
of all of the dangerous cladding
that's on the other buildings,
but also that decision-makers
of those organizations
are held to account
for the death of my brother
and the other 71 victims.
[Peter] Do not think
you have gotten away with it.
We will keep your names
in our minds and on our lips
until we see justice
for the 72 names we hold in our hearts.
- Thank you very much.
- [applause]
We just want justice, you know?
I don't think that's too much to ask.
[music intensifying]
[music fades]
[sorrowful choral music plays]
[choir vocalizing]
[music fades]
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Grenfell Uncovered (2025)
Moderators: Maskath3, sidolanters, GabrielAlejo2341