Grenfell tower inquiry live – Final report into tragic block blaze published today as relatives demand justice

It was payday – Emma Louise O’Connor and her partner Luke had treated themselves to a pizza and gone to bed in their 20th-floor flat, only to be awoken by a fire alarm in the early hours. The date was 14 June 2017 and, 16 floors below Emma’s home atGrenfell, a fridge-freezer in Flat 16 had caught ablaze.

At 1.21am – less than 40 minutes after the fire began – Emma, who has mobility issues, and her partner managed to leave the building, taking a smoke-filled lift down to the ground floor. They had escaped just before the blaze took hold across the tower block, engulfing the flammable cladding, in a tragedy that killed 72.

“I went into shock,” says Emma. “I remember being dragged away from the scene by my partner who took me to my mum’s nearby. Looking at the building burning, I couldn’t actually believe what I was watching.”

The report’s findings could ramp up pressure on police and prosecutors to make speedier progress on getting people before the courts – something many bereaved and survivors have said must happen for justice to be served.

In May, the Metropolitan Police said their investigators need until the end of 2025 to finalise their inquiry, and prosecutors will then need a year to decide whether charges can be brought.

Bereaved and survivors have described that wait, which could stretch to a decade after the catastrophic fire, as “unbearable”.

According to the update from police and prosecutors earlier this year, the mammoth police investigation into the fire has already generated 27,000 lines of inquiry and more than 12,000 witness statements.

A total of 58 individuals and 19 companies and organisations are under investigation for potential criminal offences, and more than 300 hours of interviews have taken place.

Potential offences under consideration include corporate manslaughter, gross negligence manslaughter, perverting the course of justice, misconduct in public office, health and safety offences, fraud and offences under the fire safety and building regulations.

The long-running inquiry’s second report into the Grenfell Tower fire will present findings today on how the west London tower block came to be in a condition which allowed the flames to spread so quickly, claiming the lives of 72 people.

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

It is expected inquiry chairman Sir Martin Moore-Bick and his two panel members will now go on to lay out their detailed findings regarding the actions of corporate firms in the construction industry, the local authority, London Fire Brigade and the government.

The final hearing of the second phase of the inquiry took place in November 2022 and families have previously spoken of their long wait and continued fight for justice.

The report comes just over a week after a major fire in east London at a block which had been undergoing work to have cladding removed as a result of what happened at Grenfell.

The non-fatal Dagenham blaze, coming so many years after the 2017 fire, prompted fierce criticism from various quarters including bereaved and survivors group Grenfell United, which said it showed the “painfully slow progress of remediation across the country, and a lack of urgency for building safety as a whole”.

Dame Judith Hackitt, who led an independent review into building regulations after the Grenfell fire, described it as “really concerning” that so many people are still living in uncertainty and fear about the safety of their homes.

Dowing Street said prime minister Sir Keir Starmer had, at Tuesday’s Cabinet, said the Dagenham fire was a further reminder of the importance of learning lessons from Grenfell to ensure mistakes made then never happen again.

Below, we have compiled some pictures from throughout the last seven years since Grenfell Tower caught on fire, claiming the lives of 72 people.

Since then, residents and relatives have fought for justice in what they believe was the prioritisation of profit over people.

Sandra Ruiz, whose 12-year-old niece Jessica Urbano Ramirez died in the fire, said this final publication must be a “landmark report”, which prompts “cultural, institutional and legislative change”.

She said there is “a bit of trepidation” that the report “may not cover everything that we hope for”, but added there is “a lot of hopefulness” given how “hard-hitting” the first report was.

The report needs to bring about “a tide change” in how organisations, government and local authorities are governed and managed, she said, “because we’ve seen all too often” how people have “completely sidestepped their areas of responsibility”.

She added: “We can’t allow that to happen. Unfortunately this country’s governance is broken at the moment. This report needs to change that.”

Here we will be bringing you coverage of the final report in the long-running inquiry into the fire that engulfed Grenfell Tower.