Connect with us

Published

on

Today, the years-long Grenfell Inquiry releases its final report into the fire that cost 72 lives.

What started as a small kitchen fire in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower, which contained 129 flats and stands at just over 200ft, ended up being the deadliest domestic blaze since the Second World War.

The report into phase one, published in October 2019, concluded the North Kensington property’s cladding did not comply with building regulations and was the “principal” reason for the rapid and “profoundly shocking” spread of the blaze.

It also heavily criticised the London Fire Brigade (LFB) for “serious shortcomings” and “systemic” failures in its handling of the fire, specifically due to its controversial “stay put” strategy which meant residents were told to stay in their flats by firefighters and 999 operators for nearly two hours after the fire broke out.

Pic: PA
Image:
The tower now holds a tribute to the victims. Pic: PA

Final report of Grenfell Tower inquiry to be released seven years on from deadly fire

The report published today relates to phase two, which looked into the critical circumstances and decisions leading up to the disaster – and it will name and shame those deemed responsible for devastation.

This is a minute-by-minute breakdown of exactly how the tragedy happened in the early hours of 14 June 2017, based on the statements of emergency workers and survivors.

12.54am: Behailu Kebede, 45 at the time, lives on the fourth floor in flat 16. He is asleep when his smoke alarm goes off and wakes to find white smoke billowing from behind his fridge-freezer. He dials 999 to report the fire.

12.59am: The first firefighters arrive on the scene. They are led by LFB watch manager Michael Dowden, a firefighter of around 13 years, who sees an “orange glow” coming from the window of flat 16.

1.06am: Mr Dowden notes the fire has “breached the window of flat 16”. He later tells the inquiry this isn’t uncommon in high-rise fires and therefore isn’t too concerned.

1.09am: The fire in flat 16 breaks out into the exterior cladding of the building and starts to climb the east facade rapidly.

1.14am: Firefighters enter the kitchen of flat 16 for the first time.

1.16am: Mr Dowden becomes “uncomfortable” about the way the fire is burning, later saying he couldn’t understand why it wasn’t being suppressed as a breathing apparatus team was inside.

1.19am: Mr Dowden notices the cladding is alight. He would later tell the inquiry he felt “out of my comfort zone” and “helpless” as the fire took hold.

Watch manager Michael Dowden
Image:
Watch manager Michael Dowden was emotional at points when speaking to the inquiry in 2018

1.21am: Dr Naomi-Yuan Li, who is in flat 195 on the 22nd floor with her cousin, Lydia, calls 999 after smelling something “like burning plastic” while lying in bed using her phone.

1.25am: 56-year-old Dennis Murphy, who died during the fire, makes the first 999 to report smoke coming into a flat. He is in number 111, on the 14th floor.

His son Peter told the inquiry he also called his family to tell them he was trapped and struggling to breathe.

1.26am: Met Police declares a major incident. Residents are still being told to stay in their flats.

The “stay put” strategy is standard guidance for high-rise blocks and assumes that a fire will be contained in one room or floor, allowing firefighters to tackle flames while residents remain in their homes.

1.27am: The fire reaches the roof and starts to spread horizontally. Fire chiefs believe only the cladding from the outside is burning but that it is still controllable internally.

1.29am: Mr Dowden increases the number of pumps being used to 20 – having escalated from four, to six, to eight, to 10 and to 15 between 1.13am and 1.28am. He says he is becoming “increasingly concerned”.

The amount of pumps is used by firefighters to measure the severity of a fire.

1.30am: Miriem Elgwahry, 27, is the first person to call 999 reporting that the fire is penetrating a flat. She was with her mum Eslah Elgwahry in flat 196 on the 22nd floor.

Miriem’s brother Ahmed Elgwahry said he was on the phone to them later that night and they were telling him they couldn’t breathe. Miriem and Eslah died later that night.

1.31am: After firefighter David Baddilo tells Mr Dowden they need more resources, the watch manager increases the pumps to 25.

By this time 110 out of 297 occupants have escaped, as the fire starts to spread to the north elevation of the tower.

1.42am: The London Ambulance Service declares a “significant incident”.

A report by fire protection expert Dr Barbara Lane states residents should have been told to evacuate by around this time at the latest, but the “stay put” policy remains in place.

1.45am: The first police helicopter arrives at the scene.

1.50am: Mr Dowden hands over incident command to station manager Andrew Walton, who had been listening to the incident on the radio while on a standby shift. By this time 168 of 297 occupants have escaped, though firefighters don’t know the numbers at this stage.

1.58am: Mr Walton is still trying to inform firefighters that he is in charge of the incident when he sees DAC Andrew O’Loughlin, who is two ranks above him, “making big steps” towards him.

Mr O’Loughlin, who has been a firefighter since 1989, had heard 25 pumps mentioned on his radio and knew it was an “exceptional” situation, and that “something very serious was going on”. He is surprised there aren’t more high-ranking officers at the scene already.

He asks Mr Dowden how many people were still in the building, but he doesn’t have a number. He says many people have already come out from the lower floors, and Mr O’Loughlin estimates there are between 100-200 people still in there.

Read more:
Grenfell victims: Those who lost their lives in the fire
Seven years on from Grenfell, fire safety is still being ignored

“We didn’t know the condition, age, ambulatory or health issues of any of these people and so I knew that getting them down a smoke logged staircase was going to be a challenge,” he would later say, explaining why he felt the “stay put” advice would be best for some of the people in the building.

2am: Flames travel across the north and east elevations of the tower, and start to spread around the top of the building and diagonally across the face of the building, affecting flats in the southeast and northwest corners.

2.04am: Group manager Richard Welch declares himself incident commander and increases the number of pumps to 40, not knowing that Mr O’Loughlin has already assumed command.

2.06am: Mr Welch declares a major incident on behalf of the LFB.

2.11am: Mr Welch realises Mr O’Loughlin is on site, apologises for taking control and fills him in on what he has done. Mr O’Loughlin thanks him and says he is happy with the actions he took.

2.15am: Senior operations manager Joanne Smith, who has 23 years’ experience, arrives at LFB’s control room and receives a briefing.

2.20am: Flames start to spread to south elevation. Between now and 2.50am, the control room receives 35 emergency calls from or on behalf of trapped Grenfell residents.

One was from Marcio Gomes in flat 183 on floor 21, who was trapped with his wife, who was seven months pregnant, and his two daughters. Mr Gomes, his wife and daughters survived the blaze, but his son Logan was stillborn in hospital as a result of the smoke.

Mr Gomes spoke at the inquiry in Holborn on Friday
Image:
Mr Gomes speaking at the inquiry in 2018

2.23am: A Met Police operator calls LFB’s control room to tell them a caller is trapped on the 23rd floor and their phone has cut out.

One of the LFB’s control room officers responds: “I think they’re trapped everywhere.”

2.26am: The London Ambulance Service (LAS) declares a major incident.

2.35am – ‘stay put’ advice is revoked

Ms Smith has been listening in to two long-running emergency calls, one of which is with the El-Wahabi family in flat 182 on floor 21.

The El-Wahabi family consisted of Abdul Aziz, 52, and his wife Fouzia, 42, and their three children – 21-year-old Yasin, 16-year-old Nur Huda and eight-year-old Mehdi. They all died on the 21st floor.

Grenfell victims Mehdi El-Wahabi (centre),  his father Abdulaziz (top left), mother Faouzia (bottom right), brother Yasin, 20 (top right), and sister Nur Huda, 15 ( bottom left)
Image:
Mehdi El-Wahabi (centre), his father Abdulaziz (top left), mother Faouzia (bottom right), brother Yasin, 20 (top right), and sister Nur Huda, 15 (bottom left)

Ms Smith says listening to these calls is making it clear the situation is getting worse in terms of smoke and heat, and she becomes “increasingly uncomfortable with the ‘stay put’ policy”.

The LFB control room decides to revoke the “stay put” advice and tells all occupants calling 999 to leave the tower at all costs and that it is a matter of life and death.

Mr O’Loughlin, still in charge of the scene at Grenfell, later tells the inquiry he wasn’t informed of this change for some time and that he was “confused” by it once he was.

2.44am: LFB assistant commissioner (AC) Andy Roe takes over incident command from Mr O’Loughlin. He later tells the inquiry Mr O’Loughlin had not revoked the “stay put” advice at that time.

Mr Roe, who joined the LFB as a firefighter in 2002 and had been made AC in January 2017, says he knew as soon as he arrived on the scene that there had been a “complete building system failure” to contain the blaze.

He could see the whole tower from the third floor upwards was alight.

2.47am: Mr Roe officially revokes the “stay put” advice.

He says in his testimony he doesn’t recall being told that the control room had already stopped giving the “stay put” advice, and that he made the decision solely because he could see the fire had spread in all directions, resulting in a total failure of compartmentation – a safety feature designed to keep a fire in the region of origin.

Inquiry chairman Sir Martin Moore-Bick later said more lives could have been saved had a “stay put” policy been abandoned sooner – but Mr Roe was individually praised for making the call.

2.50am: The fire spreads horizontally across the south elevation at the top of the building.

3am: The fire starts to spread across the west elevation of the tower, from north to south.

3.20am: Mr Roe chairs the first Tactical Co-ordination Group (TCG) meeting, attended by representatives of the Met Police, the LAS and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

At this stage, 100 people are believed to be trapped in the tower and it is understood three people have died.

4.02am: Fires on the south and west elevations start to converge at the top of the southern corner of the west face. Rescue efforts across the building continue for hours.

8.07am: Elpidio Bonifacio, a partially sighted retiree, becomes the last survivor to leave the tower when two firefighters rescue him from his flat on the 11th floor.

Mr Bonifacio, whose wife of 42 years was at work, later tells the inquiry he had “lost all hope” and was “ready to die” before the firefighters came and supported him down the staircase.

The aftermath

It wasn’t until November 2017 that the identities of all 72 deaths were confirmed by authorities. Among them were 53 adults, 18 children and a stillborn baby who died on the day of the blaze. One of the people who lost their lives was 10-weeks pregnant.

The first report from the Grenfell Inquiry found the LFB’s preparation for a tower block blaze such as Grenfell was “gravely inadequate” and its lack of an evacuation plan was a “major omission”.

Inquiry chair Sir Martin Moore-Bick did, however, praise the “extraordinary courage and selfless devotion to duty” of firefighters and said “those in the control room and those deployed on the incident ground responded with great courage and dedication in the most harrowing of circumstances”.

Sky News will have full coverage of the Grenfell report when it is published at 11am – watch a special programme on the disaster on Sky News at 8pm

Continue Reading

UK

Man arrested on suspicion of murder as three children and a woman die in house fire

Published

on

By

Man arrested on suspicion of murder as three children and a woman die in house fire

A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after three children and a woman died in a house fire in Brent, northwest London.

Metropolitan Police officers are investigating after being called to assist firefighters in Stonebridge, near Wembley, shortly after 1.20am.

A 43-year-old woman and three children, a 15-year-old girl, an eight-year-old boy and a four-year-old boy, died at the scene, the force said. Their next of kin have been informed.

Police are waiting for an update on the conditions of two others who were taken to hospital.

A 41-year-old man was arrested at the scene in connection with the incident and remains in custody.

Two terraced houses in Tillett Close, Stonebridge, were involved in the fire. Pic: PA
Two terraced houses in Tillett Close, Stonebridge, were involved in the fire. Pic: PA
Image:
Pics: PA

Eight fire engines and around 60 firefighters responded to the blaze, the London Fire Brigade (LFB) said.

Two terrace houses, each with three floors, were severely damaged in the fire, which was under control by around 3.25am, the fire service added.

Firefighters rescued the woman and one of the children from the second floor of the house, but they were declared dead by air ambulance crews.

The two other children were found inside the property and were also declared dead at the scene, LFB said.

Emergency services on the scene. Pic: PA
Emergency services on the scene. Pic: PA
Image:
Emergency services at the scene. Pics: PA

LFB assistant commissioner Keeley Foster said: “Upon arrival, firefighters were met with a well-developed fire, involving two adjoining properties. Crews immediately set to work carrying out firefighting operations in order to bring the incident under control.

“Sadly, a woman and three children have died as a result of this fire.

“Crews wearing breathing apparatus were able to rescue the woman and one of the children from the second floor, but they were later declared deceased at the scene.

“A further two children were discovered to have died in the fire, as crews carried out a search of the properties involved.”

She added: “This is an extremely tragic incident, and the thoughts of everyone across the brigade are with those impacted by this incident.”

Two terraced houses in Tillett Close, Stonebridge, were involved in the fire. Pic: PA
Image:
Pic: PA

London Ambulance Service said an air ambulance, incident response officers, advanced paramedic and hazardous area response team were deployed to the scene.

Read more from Sky News:
Trade war fears reignite as EU strikes back at Trump’s threat
Why Russian troops are massing near Ukraine’s ‘fortress city’
UN chief condemns ‘teaspoon’ of aid allowed into Gaza

Superintendent Steve Allen, from the Met’s local policing team in northwest London, said: “This is an extremely tragic incident and our thoughts are with everyone involved.

“Officers arrested a man at the scene and we continue to work alongside investigators from the London Fire Brigade to establish the cause of the fire.

“Emergency services will remain in Tillett Close throughout the day as these enquiries take place.”

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said in a post on X: “This is devastating news and my thoughts are with the family, friends and wider community of the four people who sadly have lost their lives.

“I remain in close contact with the London Fire Brigade and Metropolitan Police as they work to establish the cause of the fire and offer support to all those impacted.”

Dawn Butler, the local Labour MP for Brent East, posted: “Devastated to see the fatal fire at homes in Tillett Close last night.

“My prayers are with the family and friends affected by this is a very sad tragedy.

“@LFB_Brent worked hard to get it under control, thank you.”

Continue Reading

UK

Southport attack victim’s teachers ‘don’t want her to be forgotten’

Published

on

By

Southport attack victim's teachers 'don't want her to be forgotten'

The teacher of one of the Southport stabbing victims has told Sky News they “don’t want her to be forgotten”, 10 months after the knife attack in which she was murdered.

Seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe was killed along with Bebe King, six, and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar in an attack by Axel Rudakubana at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last July.

Jennifer Sephton, headteacher of Farnborough Road Infant School, will be skydiving to raise funds for the Elsie’s Story charitable trust, which has been set up in memory of the former pupil.

Alice da Silva Aguiar, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Bebe King were murdered in an attack at a Taylor Swift-themed class.
Image:
(L-R) Alice da Silva Aguiar, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Bebe King were killed in an attack at a Taylor Swift-themed class


“She’d been with us for four years, throughout her education,” Ms Sephton told Sky News, “and we just want everybody to know Elsie’s spirit.”

Describing Elsie as “such a determined young lady,” Ms Sephton said Elsie had “a real zest for life, and a sparkle in her eye all the time.”

She added that Elsie’s Story, which has been set up by Elsie’s family, is about “continuing that legacy.”

Jennifer Sephton
Image:
Jennifer Sephton

In the aftermath of the July 2024 attack, the gates outside Elsie’s school were lined with flowers, balloons, and cards bearing her name.

Since then, memorial benches and a tree have been planted in the school grounds, providing pupils and staff with a place to “remember and reflect”, Ms Sefton says.

“[Elsie’s death] had such an impact on all our community,” the teacher said, “it’s had an impact on her friends, their siblings, our school as a community and our staff.”

Read more:
Southport survivor wants end to use of traditional kitchen knives

Adrian Antell
Image:
Adrian Antell

‘We want her name to live on’

Ms Sephton will be joined in the skydive by Adrian Antell, headteacher at the adjoining junior school where Elsie had been due to start.

“Elsie was due to come to us last September,” he told Sky News, “but what we’ve learned about her is that she had a wonderful impact in the infant school, and we don’t want her to be forgotten.

“We want her name to have to live on and to be thought of in a positive way.”

Mr Antell said they continue to support Elsie’s classmates, who joined the new school without her.

“There’s no instruction manual for this,” he explained, “every day is different, and every day is one step at a time.

“So all we can do as a school is to think about individual children and support them in the best way we can.”

Continue Reading

UK

Scientists embark on crucial study to save Britain’s bees

Published

on

By

Scientists embark on crucial study to save Britain's bees

Scientists from Kew Gardens are using a new study to track which trees bees prefer to try to stem the decline in our vital pollinators.

Bee populations are falling all over the world due to a mixture of habitat loss, climate change, and the use of pesticides, with a devastating impact on our biodiversity and food production.

But it’s feared that not enough comprehensive, global research is being done to understand the issue or find solutions.

Pollination Research Lead, Dr Janine Griffiths-Lee told Sky News “Nearly 90% of our flowering plants depend on the contribution of pollinators, but in the UK the population of flying insects in the last 20 years has decreased by around 60%. 
Image:
The study is building up heat maps of the most popular trees


 

Now, scientists based at Wakehurst in Sussex (Kew’s “Wild Botanic Garden”) have begun placing advanced bioacoustics sensors in some of their trees, to track which ones the bees are more drawn to.
Image:
Non-invasive monitors track the buzz created by bees’ wing beats

UK becoming a no-fly zone

Researchers based at Wakehurst in Sussex, known as Kew’s “Wild Botanic Garden”, have begun placing advanced bio-acoustics sensors in some of their trees to track which ones bees favour.

They hope it’ll help urban planners know which trees to plant in built-up areas, as a way of combating the worrying decline in bee numbers.

Pollination research lead Dr Janine Griffiths-Lee said: “Nearly 90% of our flowering plants depend on the contribution of pollinators, but in the UK the population of flying insects in the last 20 years has decreased by around 60%.

“It’s really hard to be able to put a figure on the decline of our pollinators, but we do know that globally the number is declining.

“And with that comes crop yield instability and the loss of an essential ecosystem service.”

Their new, non-invasive monitors listen for the buzz created by bees’ wing beats, building up heat maps of the most popular spots.

Read more from Sky News:
‘Grandpa robbers’ guilty over Kim Kardashian heist
Train station stabbing in Germany

bees
kew gardens
Kew scientists are using a ‘brand new’ study to track which trees bees prefer - to try and stem the decline in our vital pollinators.
Image:
Bio-acoustics sensors are placed in trees to track which ones the bees are more drawn to

‘We’re facing twin crises’

Dr Griffiths-Lee said: “If you think about the tree’s footprint, it’s very small, but they’re huge 3D structures covered in pollen and nectar, which are essential resources of pollinators.

“So we really wanted to think about which are the best trees for bees for us to plant, and that can inform landscape planners, urban architects.”

Eight different species of tree were chosen for the study, including horse chestnut and lime trees, with a mixture of native and non-native species.

The scientists have also been gathering DNA from pollen, which also helps them to map which plants and flowers the insects prefer.

Wakehurst’s director, Susan Raikes, calls the 535-acre estate a “living laboratory”, and said the project’s all about searching for nature-based solutions to the impacts of climate change.

“The stakes couldn’t be higher, really. We know that we’re facing these twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change,” she added.

“We need to be able to understand, as the climate changes, which plants from warmer climes will be good here in the UK for pollinators in the future.

“If all of our native plants are struggling, then we need to find new sources of pollen – for us all to survive.”

Continue Reading

Trending