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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
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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
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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
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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)
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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

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Eight arrests in connection with two separate terrorism investigations

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Eight arrests in connection with two separate terrorism investigations

Eight men have been arrested by the Metropolitan Police in two unconnected terrorism investigations.

In one operation on Saturday, counter-terror officers arrested five men, four of whom are Iranian nationals. All are in police custody.

The Met said the arrests related to a “suspected plot to target a specific premises”.

In an update shortly after midnight, the force said: “Officers have been in contact with the affected site to make them aware and provide relevant advice and support, but for operational reasons, we are not able to provide further information at this time.”

It added officers were carrying out searches at a number of addresses in the Greater Manchester, London and Swindon areas in connection with the investigation.

It said those detained were:

• A 29-year-old man arrested in the Swindon area
• A 46-year-old man arrested in west London
• A 29-year-old man arrested in the Stockport area
• A 40-year-old man arrested in the Rochdale area
• A man whose age was not confirmed arrested in the Manchester area.

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Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said: “This is a fast-moving investigation and we are working closely with those at the affected site to keep them updated.

“The investigation is still in its early stages and we are exploring various lines of enquiry to establish any potential motivation as well as to identify whether there may be any further risk to the public linked to this matter.

“We understand the public may be concerned and as always, I would ask them to remain vigilant and if they see or hear anything that concerns them, then to contact us.

“We are working closely with local officers in the areas where we have made arrests today and I’d like to thank police colleagues around the country for their ongoing support.”

Terror arrests in separate investigation

Police also arrested three further Iranian nationals in London on Saturday as part of another, unrelated counter terror investigation.

The suspects were detained under section 27 of the National Security Act 2023, which allows police to arrest those suspected of being “involved in foreign power threat activity”.

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Home secretary Yvette Cooper said in a statement: “I want to thank the police and our security services for the action they have taken to keep our country safe.

“Protecting national security is the first duty of government and our police and security services have our strong support in their vital work.”

She added: “These are serious events that demonstrate the ongoing requirement to adapt our response to national security threats.”

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Pictured: Boy killed in Gateshead industrial estate fire – 14 children arrested on suspicion of manslaughter

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Pictured: Boy killed in Gateshead industrial estate fire - 14 children arrested on suspicion of manslaughter

Tributes have been paid to 14-year-old Layton Carr who died in a fire at an industrial estate.

Eleven boys and three girls, aged between 11 and 14 years, have been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter after the incident in Gateshead on Friday. They remain in police custody.

Drone view showing the aftermath of a fire at Fairfield industrial park at Bill Quay, Gateshead
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Police were alerted to a fire at Fairfield industrial park in the Bill Quay area

Firefighters raced to Fairfield industrial park in the Bill Quay area shortly after 8pm, putting out the blaze a short time later.

Police then issued an appeal for a missing boy, Layton Carr, who was believed to be in the area at the time.

In a statement, the force said that “sadly, following searches, a body believed to be that of 14-year-old Layton Carr was located deceased inside the building”.

Layton’s next of kin have been informed and are being supported by specialist officers, police added.

Pic: North News and Pictures
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Layton has been described as a ‘beautiful soul’

A fundraising page on GoFundMe has been set up to help Layton’s mother pay for funeral costs.

Organiser Stephanie Simpson said: “The last thing Georgia needs to stress trying to pay for a funeral for her Boy Any donations will help thank you.”

One tribute in a Facebook post read: “Can’t believe I’m writing this my nephew RIP Layton 💔 forever 14 you’ll be a massive miss, thinking of my sister and 2 beautiful nieces right now.”

Another added: “My boy ❤️ my baby cousin, my Layton. Nothing will ever come close to the pain I feel right now. Forever 14. I’ll miss you sausage.”

A third said: “Rest in peace big lad such a beautiful soul taken far to soon my thoughts are with you Gee stay strong girl hear for u always.”

Read more from Sky News:
Eight arrests in connection with two terrorism operations
Compensation scheme scrapped for child sexual abuse victims

Detective Chief Inspector Louise Jenkins, of Northumbria Police, also said: “This is an extremely tragic incident where a boy has sadly lost his life.”

She added that the force’s “thoughts are with Layton’s family as they begin to attempt to process the loss of their loved one”.

They are working to establish “the full circumstances surrounding the incident” and officers will be in the area to “offer reassurance to the public”, she added.

A cordon remains in place at the site while police carry out enquiries.

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Child sexual abuse victims ‘denied justice’ after compensation scheme scrapped over cost

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Child sexual abuse victims 'denied justice' after compensation scheme scrapped over cost

Sky News can reveal that the government has rowed back on a national compensation scheme for victims of child sexual abuse, despite it being promised under the previous Conservative administration.

Warning – this story contains references to sexual and physical abuse

A National Redress Scheme was one of 20 key recommendations made by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), but a Home Office report reveals the government has scrapped it because of the cost.

Marie, who is 71, suffered alleged sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at Greenfield House Convent in St Helens, Merseyside, between 1959 and 1962, and is still fighting for compensation.

Greenfield House Convent, where Marie says she was abused
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Greenfield House Convent, where Marie says she was abused

As soon as she arrived as a six-year-old, Marie says her hair was cut off, her name changed, and she experienced regular beatings from the nuns and students.

She claims a nun instigated the violence, including when Marie was held down so that her legs were “spread-eagled” as she was sexually abused with a coat hanger.

Merseyside Police investigated claims of abuse at the convent, but in 2016, a suspect died before charges could be brought.

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Marie has received an apology from the Catholic body that ran the home; she tried to sue them, but her claim was rejected because it was filed too long after the alleged abuse.

Marie is still fighting for compensation for the abuse she suffered
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Marie, 71, is still fighting for compensation for the abuse she says she suffered as a child

In February, ministers said the law would change for victims of sexual abuse trying to sue institutions for damages, which was a recommendation from the IICSA.

Previously, people had to make a civil claim before they were 21, unless the victim could prove a fair trial could proceed despite the time lapse.

Campaigners argued for the time limit to be removed as, on average, victims wait 26 years to come forward. Changes to the 1980 Limitation Act could lead to more people making claims.

Peter Garsden, President of The Association of Child Abuse Lawyers
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Peter Garsden, President of The Association of Child Abuse Lawyers

Civil cases ‘can take three to five years’

But Peter Garsden, president of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, worries that when it comes to historical abuse where the defendant is dead, institutions will still argue that it is impossible to have a fair trial and will fight to have the case thrown out of court.

Mr Garsden said it takes “between three and five years” for a civil case to get to trial.

He warned that claimants “can end up losing if you go through that process. Whereas the Redress Scheme would be quicker, much more straightforward, and much more likely to give justice to the victims”.

Victim awarded £10 compensation

Jimbo, who was a victim of abuse at St Aidan’s children’s home in Cheshire, took his case to the High Court twice and the Court of Appeal three times, but, after 13 years, all he ended up with was £10 for his bus fare to court.

Despite the Lord Justice of Appeal saying he believed that the abuse had occurred, Jimbo lost his claim because of the time limit for child sexual abuse claims to be made.

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Neither Marie nor Jimbo is likely to benefit from the removal of the time limit for personal injury claims, which is why Mr Garsden is calling on the government to implement a National Redress Scheme for victims of sexual abuse, as recommended by the IICSA.

Hundreds of millions paid to victims

The governments in Scotland and Northern Ireland have set up compensation schemes and paid hundreds of millions of pounds to victims.

In 2023, the then Conservative government said a similar scheme would be organised for England and Wales.

But the Home Office admitted in its Tackling Child Sexual Abuse: Progress Update that it “is not currently taking forward any further steps on the IICSA proposal for a separate, national financial redress scheme for all survivors of child sexual abuse”.

“In the current fiscal environment, this recommendation is very difficult to take forward,” it added.

For victims, the scheme was the last chance of compensation for a lifetime blighted by abuse.

“The money is about justice and about all the other people who have had to suffer this abuse,” Marie said.

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