All language subtitles for grenfell.the.untold.story.2021.1080p.web.h264-cbfm

This programme contains
strong language and scenes that
some viewers may find upsetting.

These are some of the items from our
flat, but there wasn't much there.

This is one of my watches.
That was my wife's watch.

This is from my brother's flat.

My original tenancy agreement
for Grenfell Tower.

I'm shaking. I don't know why.

That was given to me by my mum

and I took off in 2009,
when she passed away,

and didn't wear it until about
two days before the fire,

when I put it on for the first time
in seven years.

This was, eh, my coffee pot.

It's nice to have something...
From the past.

..from the past, yeah. Yeah.
I have nothing.

Have you got any other stories
to tell?

Once upon a time
there was two really long towers.

But they were having a fight to see
whoever was the longest one.

I think I can speak very clearly for
every single person in this room.

We feel as a community
in Grenfell Tower we've been treated

with utter contempt.

You abused us, from day one.

All those people would still be here
if we had just been respected

and listened to,
who didn't deserve...

HE EXHALES

We were fighting for our lives.

We didn't know the magnitude

of what might befall.

72 people passed away and we can't
bring our loved ones back.

My name is Constantine Gras
and I'm a community artist.

I'm actually primarily a film-maker.

In 2015, I was invited
by the landlords to become

an artist in residence on the
redevelopment of Grenfell Tower.

The brief was to create a mural and
a short ten-minute promotional film

that captured the aspirations and
the perceptions of the residents.

There's no other film record
of that community,

and that's obviously
very, very important.

It might not
look like it from the outside,

but once you were in the tower
it was actually a magical place.

And I would film in the tower,

capturing these amazing views.

Also, watching the rain storms
blowing across London

as they pounded against the window.

It was the only place I've ever seen
where you can see the rain approach,

but then you'd have a situation
where, because we were in a corner,

those windows, you can see the rain,
and that window, it's sun.

I don't know, when you walked in,

you forgot you were in a tower
building.

It's just like you open the door,

you're, like, met with this light,
bright light.

I was extremely excited about
moving into Grenfell Tower,

the reason being, is that
my brother lived there.

I moved in straight away. As soon as
they offered it to me, I moved in.

I thought it was a palace.

I thought it was a palace,
it looked so big.

We had a lot of parties,
a lot of dinners with friends,

with relatives.

In fact, we moved
for the first night into the tower

when my wife came back
from the hospital, from the clinic,

with my son.

The place was safe.
My neighbours were lovely.

If we needed help, we used
to knock on each other's door

for any support.
You know, this is it now.

This is where my children
are going to grow up.

On our floor we were really close
with our immediate neighbours

from flat 182, the Wahabi's.

I met the dad.
He was very flamboyant.

He liked his Hawaiian shirts
and, eh,

we sort of got to know each other
like that.

There was so much laughter
and fun in my brother's house.

I'm the youngest of nine.

My brother was well known for doing
birthday parties for his children.

He always threw birthday parties
and invited the whole family.

So you can imagine all of us
in the front room of Grenfell Tower.

Like, "Oh, the Moroccans are
coming!"

I got to see their youngest
when Mehdi was born.

He used to come into our flat,
erm...

..and Megan, my daughter,
who is the youngest,

used to go into their flat
for dinner.

Yeah, he loved playing
with Marcio's children.

They'd take
their little scooters out,

and their little bikes,
and they all...

..it was amazing.

Erm, so they had a good bond,
a very good bond,

a special bond, if you like. Erm...

..yeah, it was amazing,
amazing place.

The tower was old, but it
functioned and it functioned well.

So, having a bit of an upgrade,
you know, I think

that's always going to be
a positive thing.

This was the home you wanted
to be for life, so the fact

that they were going to spend money
on it, we were very happy about it.

They want to make it look better,
because, God bless Grenfell,

it wasn't the prettiest of sights.
So, I thought, "Yeah, this is good.

"There will be some inconvenience,
but at the end of the refurb,

"we've got a new tower."

I think the refurbishment was
probably already a year under way

when I arrived.

They'd just started
to put the system up

to put the cladding
and the insulation.

When I first turned up I was met
with quite a strong opinion,

telling me, "We don't need artists
here, it's a waste of money."

Maybe a part of it was what's known
as art washing,

almost papering over the cracks

behind the redevelopment.

The penny dropped when they started
doing the works that, actually,

it wasn't going to be as smooth
as they made it out to be.

Every other day, or every week...

There was no water. We called TMO.

"There's no water."
"Oh, yeah, we know."

It was constantly,
the lift's broken,

you would see poor women
carrying prams with babies in.

I had my child,
I think he was three at that time,

a pram, shopping,
and it was a struggle.

You had a complaints procedure
you were supposed to use.

And yet if you used it,
they didn't respond well,

or in a timely way.

Well, this was their MO.

"Yeah, we're aware of your complaint
and we are working on it

"and we'll get someone there",
but they never did.

We complained a number of times
about the exposure of the pipes.

They were going to box them in,
but the ones in the corridor,

the main ones, they were just
going to leave it exposed.

They had no consideration.

The plans kept changing.

The boiler was going to be moved
here... The biggest is the boiler.

..it's not going to be
in the kitchen, as promised.

We hadn't been consulted about that.

It was like,
"This is how it's going to be."

That was almost
the TMO's biggest mistake,

because in one fell stroke they had
motivated 90% of the residents

of Grenfell Tower into saying,
"We do not want this."

I didn't know Ed at that time
and he knocked at my door

and he gave me a flyer.

And then he told me that there
would be a meeting that night.

It was at that meeting
that we agreed that those people

who want to do something,

put posters up stopping Rydon
coming into their property.

They needed to listen
to our concerns

and not just barge through people's
doors like they had done with some.

I didn't consider myself a rebel,
but I did put a thing on my door,

'No Entry'.

We were pretty powerless
until that time.

I mean, if you want
to divide a community, you don't

allow them
to speak with a unified voice.

And that's what the residents
association was formed to do,

to provide a collective voice
for residents

that was listened to by our landlord
and respected by our landlord.

And we had a lot of people
that were very keen to get involved

and in the end six residents,
or seven residents,

came forward to become
lead representatives.

There was Willie.

There was Antonio...

..Marcio...

..Hanan...

..David...

..Turafat and myself.

Saying, "Listen,
we have collective concerns,

"you need to listen to us
collectively."

And a group of residents
went and presented that argument

to Councillor Blakeman and our other
local Labour councillors.

CHILDREN PLAYING

Edward Daffran invited me
along to film this meeting.

Shall we go in? Yeah.

It's kind of, like, quite remarkable
that that recording exists

and it shows our community
as we were at that time,

with no knowledge that it would ever
have any relevance two, three,

four, five years later on.

Good morning.

So we're all
residents of Grenfell Tower.

It's about the improvement works
currently being carried out. Mm-hm.

At some point, without us
being told, the plans were changed.

And then we were not
consulted on the change of plans.

Oh, that's interesting,
cos the TMO have claimed

that people were consulted.
Oh, no. No-one's been consulted.

In fact, we have at length
written to them, emailed them,

talked to them, and they
basically don't do anything.

They just ignore them.

Yeah, can I give you a little
bit of background? Please.

The problem with Grenfell Tower
was that their original intention

was to demolish it. Right.

And we said,
"Well, look, if you demolish it,

"you're going to displace
120 households.

"Where are you going to put them?"

And then they found
this £10 million, so they decided

that instead
of demolishing Grenfell Tower

they would refurbish it.
And obviously that's very difficult

with residents living there.

Morning, councillors. Hello.

Firstly, let me apologise
for being late.

I was the very first tenant
that moved into Grenfell Tower.

Firstly, let me just say
with all this work

and all this thing going on,

they have forced me to leave
the home I've lived in for 41 years.

I did have a note on my door
saying no access to Rydon.

But while I was away they put new
windows in. What, into your flat?

Yeah. On the outside?
On the outside.

And one of them's
already fell apart.

Because I've got the - you know the
beading that goes around the edge?

That's actually fell off.

Yeah. They need to take that out.
But my main concern

is just to let you know
that, due to the TMO,

over my 41 years of living there,

they have actually
forced me out of my home.

My husband died in Grenfell Tower.

My daughter was born
in Grenfell Tower.

And now I am leaving Grenfell Tower.

And I'm leaving all my memories
behind.

And this is all due
to the TMO,

and all this work that's going on.

It's made me feel as though
I want to jump out the window.

They were putting new windows in.

So I put the kettle on and I sat
down in my normal armchair.

And I thought to myself...

"My God, it's freezing
sitting here!"

So, I had lace curtains,

and two heavy curtains either side.

So I've pulled the heavy curtain
to one side.

May God be my judge,

there was a gap,

that much,

all around the window frame.

I could literally put
my whole arm through it.

So one of the men has come up,
had a look at it.

They had one of those guns
- you know them guns?

He said, and they went around
with the silicone...

..all the way round the window.

And they kind of smoothed it down
like, with the

- you could see they smoothed
it down with their fingers.

You could kind of see that.

And...

..it was just left like that.

It's definitely quite
an emotional roller-coaster

you're not just experiencing...
It's all my memories.

Yeah, that's the whole reason why we
didn't move out in the first place,

cos me and my mum initially
were just like,

"No, we don't want to move out
because it's my father's memories."

I grew up here, I went
to school down the road,

I went to the park. I was very close
to the university as well.

So, erm, it's...

..that's another route
we're considering.

But it's just one of those things
where we're still trying to fight
where we can until we leave.

Please could you ask
TMO and Rydon to meet with us,

cos we want to find a way forward

but we want to find a way forward
that works.

Very helpful. Great.
Thank you. Great, thank you.

Thank you.

That meeting
with Councillor Blakeman, I think,

and with Councillor Atkinson,
was a group of residents,

not including me, going
to our local councillors and saying,

"Come and help us."

But all that time we were
complaining about windows,

we didn't know about the decisions
going on behind the scenes.

MEHDI: Our long story.
CONSTANTINE: OK, what's the story?

Once upon a time,
there was two aliens.

One was on top of the tower

and one was flying

and it had a big spiky tail.

The theme for all the drawings I did

would be drawing the tower block.

From that, we would have these
fantastical images being drawn

of superheroes travelling
through the cosmos.

Various things like that.

I've... It's just got very poignant
memories for me

of doing the drawing
with Mehdi El-Wahabi

on the walkway with his mother.

Whilst he was doing the drawing,
I filmed him.

Our long story.
OK, what's the story?

The towers. Once upon a time,

there was two really long towers

but they were having a fight to see
who was the longest one.

And then...

I mean, I'd have seen Constantine's
clip where he's recorded my nephew,

Mehdi, but that's Mehdi
all the time.

Such a jolly, jolly soul.

He's gonna eat the tower.

I know!

Our long story.

Me and my family
lost a lot in the fire.

My brother, who I speak often about
and loved dearly,

my sister-in-law,
who I also loved dearly,

and their children.

Yasin was at university.

Nur Huda was sitting her GCSEs.

And Mehdi, bless his soul,
was at primary school.

There was...a boy on a boat
and he went into space.

And he meeted a king alien

and then the alien eated him.

Then he went back to Earth running

and lived happily ever after.

Sadly, as a result of that tragedy,
they're not here any more.

OK? They're not here any more.

We'll never be the same again.

I've been filming with the residents
for six months now.

They were angry about the lack
of consultation

and felt things were being
forced on them.

So it leads up to the point
where we have the senior manager

from the GMO, Peter Maddison,

head of assets and regeneration,

having to come and explain himself

in the presence of Victoria Borwick,
our MP.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

Hello!

Hello. Hello! Hello,
my name's Victoria Borwick.

Hi. Hello. What's your name?

I'm silly.

LAUGHTER

Well done.
Very good indeed. Excellent.

Well, thank you all very much
indeed for inviting me.

I'm delighted to actually
see us all together.

Can I say thank you very much to TMO
for joining us this morning.

Cos that's really, really helpful,

cos if we're ever gonna have
a resolution,

it must be one that
we can all work to together.

So can we sort of start off
with your main concerns?

We've been trying to talk to you,
we're concerned about the work.

They've kind of carried on,
ignored us,

and of the people we spoke to,
46% have had the work done

and they're not happy with it.

So there was just some
big...big concerns.

Well, let's be really honest,

it's not the job of the MP
to sort it out,

it's the job of
your local councillor.

Let's not beat about the bush here.

I'm extremely happy to add
my name later... Yeah.

..but I don't have any power
to direct anybody.

I don't want to lie
to any of you here

or to pretend to you that I do.

You know, I remember at the
beginning of the meeting, um,

Victoria Borwick saying that she had
no power and, I mean,

that was something we were
used to hearing.

You know, it was very obvious,
the power that they had.

I mean, they were our
elected representatives.

There's no point being
an elected representative
unless you hold power.

We understand that very clearly.

What we... And we understand if you
say it's not your particular role

to help us out,
we'll take that on board as well.

I'm happy to be here... But while
you're here today... Exactly.

..you should know,
and I think I can speak very clearly

for every single person
in this room,

we feel, as a community,
Grenfell Tower,

we've been treated
with utter contempt by the TMO

and Ryden as well.
The work has to be done,

but they don't have to treat us
the way they've treated us

as human beings.

When they put their proposal in
to put the boiler in our hallways,

I have furniture that's
been handed down through my family

for three generations,

that I've got in my flat, that if
they put this boiler in the hallway,

I will not be able to remove.
And that is not acceptable.

But I believe there's
some flexibility.

You can put them elsewhere?

Our recommendation,
our strong recommendation,

is that the HRU unit in the hallway

is the most sensible location

for a variety of reasons.

One, it's around the living...

For you, not for the resident...

I'm happy to listen to you,

but if you could just listen
to me...

It's easy for you, innit?

It's not for the residents. We're
writing to residents with proposals.

What we're going to offer is that we
can locate the HRU in that cupboard,

however, we need the opportunity
to come into

each of your homes individually,
to explain...

APPLAUSE

Thank you, can we just...

That's not what they said
all this time.

The moment where Peter Maddison
relents, finally,

to agreeing for those families
that have not already had

the heating unit
installed in the hallway,

that it will be installed where
it was originally meant to be,

was a significant moment
and a significant victory

for the work that we, as a group,
had tried to achieve.

It was rather bittersweet in a way

because what he didn't say was
that he would then move the units

that had already been placed there

for residents
that wanted them moved.

Are there any other issues
we should be discussing?

For me, it's simply reassuring
people who have had it done,

who felt threatened
to have it done,

like, what provisions
can you put in place for them

to have the solution
that they would want?

Nothing until you lot
have been done.

Because otherwise we'll be
sitting here in December

and you still won't have
any hot water.

Is that what you really want?
For heaven's sake,

no solution in life is ever perfect.
Can I just say something?

I said many times
I refused to have it in my hallway,

but the reason I got it done...

I was never happy with it from the
beginning. You said, that's right.

I got it done cos they told me
once the new system starts,

if I don't get it done,
I won't have any water.

They didn't just say hot water,
they said I won't have any water.

But the problem is, you just told me

at the beginning of this meeting
you are a community.

When I have no hot water,
I go and take baths

at the people next door, who do.

The lady was talking about
no water ever.

That's what they said... Yes, fine.

But he's just said it again.

That's what...
No. He just said a few minutes ago

and I wrote it down,

"You will have no hot water
for four or five days

"and we have no guarantee
of cold water."

He's just said it
quite clearly again.

Oh, my goodness. Imagine.
Two small children, 19th floor.

It would mean I can't cook,
we can't drink, we can't bathe.

I can't take the risk,

so I ended up having the boiler
done on the hallway.

Later on, I found out
some people ended up refusing,

including Hiwot, she was like,
"I'm not gonna let them do it."

So those people refused,

ended up having the boilers done
in their kitchen.

There wasn't any problem,
there wasn't any complication,

they still had their water running

and everything else told was a lie.

Whoever runs this place,

you never see them,
they've become faceless,

but they never, ever once...

I've been here 32 years,
in that building.

Never once have you heard
them mention

the human being who lives there.

It's all about the building.

It's all about that.

We were five days with one lift.

Five days.
I was calling every day. Yeah?

But the worst thing was the water.

You must all know the five weekends.

Well, it was me on the phone.

I'm going to get upset

because one day, I actually...

..collapsed in the hallway

because I'd been so ill... I hadn't
got the energy, you know,

to do this.

So I really realised
in that five-week period

that nobody thought of the people.

My mum, Sheila, lived
in Grenfell Tower, in flat 132.

And she moved there
around about 1981, I think.

She was really into her art.

Mum was the head of a family
of two sons, six grandchildren,

and three great-grandchildren

at the time she died
in the Grenfell fire.

I knew that certain things of Mum's
would have survived the fire

and emerging from the ashes
were some crystals,

some of which came shining through,
pristine,

like a beacon of light
from my mum.

And that footage,
it really captures...

HE SIGHS

..how vulnerable people were
in Grenfell Tower.

Yeah.

We were fighting for our lives

and yet, we weren't aware of that.

We felt like what was happening
wasn't correct,

and yet, we didn't know
the magnitude of what might befall.

The day I found out I was actually
going to be offered Grenfell Tower,

I couldn't believe my luck.

I think I cried.

I was at work when I got the
phone call, I think I cried.

I lived on the upper floors
for about five years.

Denis, he was my next-door
neighbour,

used to call me mate,
"Hello, mate,"

and he used to call my
children, "Hello, mates".

He probably attended more
meetings than we did as well.

He used to look out for me

because he knew I was, like,
at home by myself

with the two kids back then,

so he was sort of like an uncle.

He used to knock on my door,

tell me when the lifts were broken,
the water's gone or...

It was, like, you know, somebody
that looked out for you.

Denis wasn't a campaigner or
activist in any sense of the word,

but he would fight

for what he felt
very strongly about,

and that was the refurbishments
in Grenfell Tower.

These are coins that were
recovered from Denis' flat.

And they are so important to us

because they're all the possessions
we have left of his.

So in terms of why
we invited you down...

We just want progress, cos after
all, we met about a month or so ago,

perhaps it's two months now.

I think it was July.
As long ago as that.

Gracious me, doesn't time fly
when I'm enjoying myself?

So we met in July and we felt
we'd carry out another survey.

Ten people knocked on doors
around the building.

So I just want to summarise
what we found out.

Cos one of the questions we asked
is, did you feel threatened?

Did you feel like you've been
lied to? Did you feel harassed?

Yeah, four or five months
had probably elapsed,

they were still having major
issues in the building work.

The residents wanted an
independent investigation.

There was a real concern
that this needed to be investigated,

what had happened.

And the meeting had a different
atmosphere to the one in July.

It was much more acrimonious

because there was so much
dissatisfaction with what's gone on,

and at this point in the meeting,

we're able to demonstrate,
you know, in a quantifiable way,

the level of dissatisfaction and the
seriousness of the allegations

that we are making against TMO.

Well, 68% of households said they
experienced being forced,

being pressured, harassed
or lied to by the TMO.

I spoke to someone and she was
crying when we spoke to her.

To be told that she had to remove
part of her kitchen by Monday,

or they were going to take further
proceedings against her.

She's a single mother,

she doesn't have any idea how to
remove part of her kitchen

and part of the cupboard in it.

And to do that in two days,
over the weekend.

Erm, and that's just one story.
I could go on.

Do you want to comment

on why you think people
are still feeling that way?

Erm, on the general...
CLEARS THROAT

..points, I mean,
I think it's very difficult

to respond to general points.

What I would say in
all of these incidences,

what we need are specifics -

but obviously, you know...we are
absolutely happy and determined

to resolve any issues.

If people give us specific issues,

we can investigate them
and resolve them.

On to the heating...
You don't investigate, though.

You refuse to investigate them.

Peter Maddison, you're here today

and I would like you to explain
in front of our MP

how you think you can have figures
like 68% of people feeling harassed,

lied to, abused by your company?

So, what I would say to them is that
if you provide me with the evidence,

if you give me some facts
that I can investigate...

We have. We've got the evidence.

..so we can have the addresses,
and the details,

we will investigate
them and we will look at each...

You're going around in circles.

Peter, Peter.

If you... I'd love to...
You're going around in circles.

Let's go back to where
we started... More lies.

It is a lie.

On the 11th of July,
about 20 of us said,

"Here's our flat numbers,
we've experienced this."

I'm still waiting.
I'm still waiting.

I'm still waiting for any details
from you, David,

about this harassment.

We want an independent
investigation, right,

so that people can disc...
so that independently,

people can come to understand why,
as a community,

we feel so aggrieved
at what you've done to us.

An example of how complaints
were handled by the TMO -

I found that my neighbour had
moved on out of the flat

and the contractor who had been
working in there during the day

and left the flat door open,
and I tried to pull the door closed,

and I couldn't close the door,
so I made a complaint.

I was told to pull it myself.

Of course, I would have pulled it
closed myself if I could have done,

I couldn't do that.

Subsequently, it turns out
on the night of the fire,

door 136 did not
have a working self closer on it

and it remained open.

As a consequence of that, the smoke
entered into the communal area

and two people on my landing
passed away

as a result of not being able
to evacuate their flats.

No, in terms of the cladding,

I didn't really come across
any buildings with cladding,

it was just almost like just
putting lipstick on the tower,

make it look pretty
from the outside.

I wasn't really interested
in the outside element

because that doesn't
make me my home.

It's the inside
that makes it my home.

So I didn't know
much about cladding.

No, they said that they showed
it to us, they said,

"Oh, we showed them..."
and whatever.

They sent out A4 pictures of it.
What the hell?

A wee image of something. If I gave
you an A4 picture of something

and said, "That's it,
doesn't that look lovely?"

"That's grand, yeah."

But if I gave you
one of those actual panels,

I'm sure you would
question the material inside,

you would say, "what's this
material?" Do you know what I mean?

"You're putting this on our
building, what is it?"

I'm Peter Apps, I'm deputy editor
at Inside Housing magazine.

The cladding system is made up
of two primary materials -

there's insulation, which goes
onto the wall of the tower,

and then there is the metal
composite panels,

which sit in front of that.

They're the external, new external
wall of the building

and they were made of a product
called aluminium composite material,

which is two very thin sheets
of aluminium,

bonded together with
a plastic called polyethylene,

and polyethylene burns
at a very low temperature,

it melts and burns
while it's melting.

Inside the cladding system
are insulation boards

which are sort of bits
of foam panels,

and they're just there
to keep the building warm.

On Grenfell, they were made with
various types of plastic foam.

It was very...both very combustible

and both let of large
quantities of toxic smoke

when they burn,
including cyanide.

There has been fires in there.

But because it was in
an individual unit,

the fire brigade have been
able to put the fire out

and let the people back in.

Basically, because the whole
block was bricks and mortar

and that doesn't burn.

INDISTINCT CHATTING

SIREN BLARES

The Shepherds Court fire
was a tumble dryer

caught fire in a kitchen

and the flames spread up
the outside of the building.

The flat where the fire had started,
it wasn't contained there,

it had spread, I think, like,
five or six floors up

and all the properties above had
definitely been impacted.

There were a lot of missed warnings
before Grenfell.

The fact that this fire happened
less than a mile away,

in a council housing tower block,
just feels so poignant to me.

It was a big warning
to everybody, really,

or should have been,

that this reliance on the idea
that fire will stay in the flat

it starts and not spread,

is something that will not work

if you've stuck combustible
materials to the external walls.

Thinking to myself, stay-put policy.

So, the stay-put policy
cannot be a good policy

if the thing had travelled up
the building,

and then we put it in
the subsequent blog

and raised it as a concern
in that blog to the KCTMO.

The "Playing with flyer!" blog.

"..and incompetence
of our landlords, TMO,

"and bring to an end the
dangerous living conditions

"and neglect of
health and safety legislation

"that they inflict upon their
tenants and leaseholders."

It was not a prediction of a fire
in Grenfell Tower,

it was a prediction that it will
take a fire somewhere on the estate

to heighten the
concerns that we had.

So London fire brigade
wrote to all London councils

notifying them about the fire

and asking them to check
their buildings.

TMO forwarded it
to their fire risk assessor

and there was an email exchange
about Grenfell Tower,

where they said,
"Oh, there is cladding,

"but it meets building regulations",

and that was really it. It was the
last opportunity, I think,

to ask a...searching question

about whether or not the building
was safe, and it was missed.

Fire brigade.

Yeah, hello, hi. The fire, flat, in
Grenfell Tower.

Sorry, a fire where?

Flat 16, Grenfell Tower,

in the fridge. Right.

It's fourth floor.

The fire started in a fridge...in a
kitchen, in the fourth floor.

But it then has to get out of that
kitchen

and into the cladding system.

And the route out was through the
window.

So the UPVC melted and the
insulation burns through,

that's how it stops being a kitchen
fire

and starts being a cladding fire.

Not long after one o'clock, you
start to see

things breaching through the
window, then a few sparks

and bits of orange on the outside of
his window.

Come away from there! Come on! Get
over there!

It's getting worse.

The primary cause of the rapid fire
spread

was polyethylene, which is a plastic
which is basically solid petrol.

And that ignited, and it takes the
fire rapidly up the building.

And that surprised the fire-fighters
because they were acting

under the belief that the modern
high rise building

will contain the spread of flame.

Less than a minute per floor, it's
spreading up the building.

As the fire moves up the building,

it's getting back into people's
flats through the windows.

One of the plastics on the walls was
called polyisocyanurate

and the cyanurate bit indicates that
you get cyanide when you burn it.

They put what they called a crown on
the roof of the building,

which was nothing other than
decoration.

So, when the fire hit the top of the
building,

it ignited the crown and then
started spreading around.

By 1:30 in the morning,

there are 185 people still in the
building.

So, I would like to...

..how you feel about this,

is to talk about the fire.

HE SIGHS
Yeah.

Somebody knocked on my door - that's
strange.

Opened the door and Khaled, my
neighbour from next door,

said, "Willy, there's a fire in the
building."

Actually, before he opened his
mouth...

..a smell and something to the
left of me,

by the lifts, caught my eye.

There was grey smoke and the first
thing was

the smell and there was a wisp of
black smoke,

jet black smoke, it looked...

In my eyes, it looked even too heavy
to be floating.

It was pure black and I thought,
"Shit, we're in trouble here."

The kitchen was full of smoke and,
all of a sudden,

there was just like fire,

completely, the whole kitchen
window.

My...blind caught fire straight away
and just fell on the floor.

Just closed the door.

I woke the kids and my other half...

..and we managed to just leave.

I went out the side door and this
was the first time I saw the fire.

I looked to the left and there was
panels popping.

That was the first sound I heard,
was popping.

I thought it was the tree.

And I looked, and I could see the
fire climbing,

on the left-hand side.

It was like someone was stood on the
top of the building

with petrol cans and pouring it down
the side of the building,

the flames were climbing that high.

I then thought, "Eddie..."

Stay put advice is I should probably
stay where I am

and then literally, at that moment,
my phone rang.

I said, "Eddie, you need to get out.

"This building is going up like a
fucking tinderbox.

"Get the fuck out of there."

And then I opened my front door...

..went out, closed the door.

I had the towel in my...round my
thing,

my right hand, closed the door,

and then set off for where I thought
the communal door was.

I was like, "Oh, my God. I need to
call Mirren. I need to call Mirren."

I don't have my phone. I was
panicking.

He had his trousers front to back.

He didn't even know he had grabbed
his phone and

he had it inside his pocket, which
now happened to be at the back.

He was like, "Oh, yeah, I've got my
phone."

I wouldn't have been able to call
her otherwise.

I didn't know what to think. All I
know is fire. I had to leave.

Grabbed my girls, said, "Wake up,
wake up, we need to go."

They were just all half asleep.

Down the stairwell, 19th floor.

During the refurb works, the TMO had
put this massive

boxing in in the hallway,

which we had complained about as a
health and safety threat.

And I found myself up against that
structure,

rather than at the emergency door,

which was actually just round the
corner from it.

So I actually let go of my...

..the towel to start pawing at this
wall,

and then, when I let go of the
towel,

I started inhaling the smoke,

which was like so thick,

and then literally, at that moment,

a fire-fighter came
through the door,

because my next-door neighbour's son
had begged them to come up

to save his dad.

And they literally... I don't know
how much longer I had to live.

They came and bumped into me...

..and pulled me out, into the
stairwell.

At that moment, again, Christopher
called me...

..and said, "Look, look, I sent you
a picture."

And he sent a photo of the tower
that he had just took

from the outside. The tower totally
ablazed.

And he told me, "I told you, it's
very serious. Get out."

And I realised I couldn't get out.

There was a few of us in the
stairwell, going down.

We heard, "Go back, go back."

And then we all started running back
up the staircase again.

Some people ran back up to the top
floor,

I was on my landing again on the
19th floor,

thinking, "What do I do?"

The last minute, I decided, "No, I
need to go."

And I just carried my youngest
daughter

and holding my other daughter very
tightly,

just running down the stairs as fast
as I can.

Got to the ground floor.

I'll never forget this because I was
about to open the fire exit door

and the fire-fighter on the other
side shouted, "No, stop!

"Don't go through that way!"

Cos I didn't know that was where the
fire was, above me,

by the fire exit.

And then, minutes later, I realised
that things were just dropping down,

fire was dropping down.

Eddie came out with a towel around
his face, T-shirt, jeans.

He threw his arms around me and he
said,

"Willy, you saved my life, man."

I thought of others. I tried to
phone others.

They were all busy, so...

..I was guessing that other people
were phoning them

and telling them. I couldn't get
through to Dennis.

Marcel still in -

I couldn't get through to him.
Antonio was still in.

Helen was there beside me. Helen was
crying because

she had relatives still in there.

I evacuated at 1:21 and called my
brother.

He said the smoke on the 21st floor
was already black,

but they were told to stay put and
they believed

they were going to be rescued.

I promised them that I would call
them when the flames

were approaching their flat.

And I know that my nephew was
scared,

cos they were trying to calm him
down, cos I could hear that.

The fire had now reached their
flat - it was in their kitchen.

I lied to my eight-year-old nephew
on the night

because my brother asked me to tell
him that it was going to be OK.

I have to live for the rest of my
life knowing

that I lied and I told him it was
going to be fine,

knowing that it wasn't.

BEEPING

GT MPES 13.

MPES 13, go ahead.

Just to make you aware that we have
taken over from MPES 44

and we are down-linking.

This is received, all messages
are being passed to LFB.

The current advice is people
should try and get out

by any means, if they can,
to try and get out of the building.

DISTANT SIREN

MAN COUGHS

It was dark grey smoke coming in.

I felt it was chemically
infused, the smell,

but nothing I'd really smelt before.

Hello.

Hello, we're phoning from the
Grenfell Tower again.

Yeah, from what flat are you in?

183. 183. We tried to get out.

What floor are you on?
We can't... Floor 21. Floor 21?

Is your wife pregnant as well? She's
pregnant, yeah, and she's asthmatic.

Pregnant and asthmatic.

Yeah.
She can't deal with the smoke. Yeah.

There's no way you can get out,
floor 21? No way, there's no way.

We tried three times already.

In my flat, the first sign
of the fire was through my bedroom

and it coming through
the gaps of the window frame.

To me it seemed like a lifeline, but
it was probably just a few seconds.

I remember looking at it and
thinking, "I closed that window.

"How is this coming through?"

You know, and I looked at the window
thinking, "It's shattered.

"It's broken," you know -
it was all intact.

And then I noticed that they were
coming through the gaps.

Where it got filled with the filler,
it's obviously just melted away

quicker than anything else,
and it's just filtered through.

Shit, the fire's there, fire's
there. The fire is in the house.

The fire's in the house now?

You need to get your family outside.
We're doing it now.

Hold hands, girls. Everybody hold
hands. Don't touch that now, girls.

We've just got to go.
Right, you've just got to go.

Stay with me on the phone, OK?
Right, hold hands.

Hold hands. Stay together.
Get to the stairs now!

It was pitch-black.

The plan was I was going to
be the last one,

so that I can try and motivate
and push them down.

So I said, "Go diagonally.

"You're going to hit the door,
the door will swing open.

"Just go straight through.

"Grab the rail
and just don't let go of the rail

"and just follow it down,"

because we didn't know what to
expect in the stairwell.

COUGHING

Yeah, so the firemen know.
I know you - don't talk to me.

The firemen know that
you're on that floor now, OK?

And keep the children, make sure you
keep hold of the children as well.

Keep going, girls.

His wife's pregnant and asthmatic.

Don't talk to me, I'm staying
with you, I'm not going anywhere.

Keep going.

Come on. Where's the fire brigade?
Jesus! They should be there.

I think I was probably getting
to about halfway,

maybe eight minutes or so.

It was just as if it was filled
was something but not air,

and it just felt like my lungs
were just that tight,

and I remember just sitting down
and then thinking...

.."You've got to keep going."

Girls, come on! Follow my voice.

That would have been the time...

..I realised my daughter's
behind me.

She said...

"I can't, Dad."

HE SOBS

Girls! Girls! Come on!

I think she was about maybe
a floor above me.

Just over here still, come on!

He's got three kids and his wife.
He's lost them. Girls, come on!

I looked down and I saw light coming
up through the stairs, the rails.

And so I ran down
and it was a firefighter.

It was the first time
I saw anybody in the stairwell.

My daughters. They are still...
My daughter! And my wife!

My wife is up there,
and she's pregnant!

I need to go and find them.
Right, stay on the phone.

You need to go back and get them,
as a dad, OK?

And I'm sure your wife
will be with them as well.

HE BREATHES HEAVILY

Just take your time
and go up slowly.

Don't do it all at once,
because you won't get there.

Do a little bit at a time.
How long can you survive this smoke?

Oh, come on!

I was panicking.

So that's why
I kept shouting for my wife.

And once I got back up the stairs,
I couldn't find them.

Oh, it was just disbelief, shock.

I mean,
I didn't know people had died.

You know, I just thought most
people would have got out.

You would have thought,
in this day and age, that people -

I just thought - but obviously
as soon as I got on the ground

and then I realised
the enormity of what happened,

and I started to hear
first-hand accounts.

Yeah, it was hard.

It was hard to know who had come out
and who hadn't,

because unless you actually
saw them, you didn't know.

I met people three days
after the fire, residents,

that I thought were dead.

We were going round in so many
centres, even in the morning,

looking for our friends
and our neighbours,

looking for so many kids.

"Have you seen so, have you got
so and so on your register?"

It wasn't just losing your home.
It's people.

Moses, he lived up on I think it was
the 12th, 13th floor,

he didn't get out.

Tony, Steven Power, Denis Murphy.

Sheila.

And it's strange to think that...

..you're never going to see them
people again.

A man came over to me,
he says to me,

"You know Mariem and her mum
didn't come out."

"I said, how do you know?"
He said, "Believe me."

Nobody came out...

..from the top floor.

Just an indication of people,
Marcio phoned me.

He was in hospital,
could hardly speak.

His family were in induced comas.

His wife had lost...
the baby was gone.

He phoned me to see if I was OK.

Yeah, that's the way we were.

I carry this guilt.

If I had my phone,
if I had my phone,

I would have been able to
call certain people.

Yeah, I do struggle.

I remember vividly some of those
children that I used to talk to

in the lifts or
the entrance of the tower,

those children are not
there any more.

I remember so much.

They are not there any more.

I could have lost my daughters, as
well, or...that kind of thing, so...

..it's all about balancing it
all out.

But now, for the rest of my years,
nothing will bring my son back.

72 people passed away and we can't
bring our loved ones back.

The impact it has
had on our families

and our community
could have been prevented.

We can't change that now.

But we can change the lives of those
we've lost, to count,

for their deaths not to
have been in vain.

There has to be change.
We have to learn from this.

Life will never be the same for us.

We may find a new place to live,
but it won't be our home.

Grenfell was our home. The people
who were there were our family.

As a result of this inquiry,
I want the truth to be found.

A couple of months after the fire,
they did come up with this

thing, did you want to go in
and see your flat?

We had to be all gowned up
and special boots on and gloves on.

And... Oh, I was a bag of nerves.

But when we were walking up
the stairs,

all the walls were black and all
the paint had come off the banister.

INTERVIEWER: As if the heat had...?

As if the heat had took the paint
off -

that's the first thing I noticed.

Then we hit my floor.

And I went in...

And, er...

I took one look and had to walk out.

Because it was nothing like my home.
Nothing!

I didn't go to see the flat, because
we had the option to get suited

and walk up the stairs, but that was
just going to be too difficult.

Um...

The police were nice enough to,
to do a 360 of the flat.

There was nothing.

That was your home.

It was very upsetting
and it looked like a war zone.

The fire was a terrible tragedy
which claimed

the lives of many people.

So there's an urgent need to
understand exactly what

happened and how a modern
building could have been

engulfed by flames and destroyed.

Those that are accountable need to
be held accountable for it.

There should be no way of hiding.

With the sole exception of RBKC,

one finds no trace of any acceptance
of any responsibility for what

happened to Grenfell Tower,
not from the architects,

the contract managers, the main
contractors, the specialist

cladding subcontractors, the fire
safety engineers or the TMO.

Nor,
with the exception of Ceoltex,

who have made certain limited
admissions which they assert

were not causative,
do we find any admission of any

kind from those who made and sold
the products used in the cladding.

For me, it's as simple as,

you've put profit
ahead of people's wellbeing.

But the important element
of the inquiry

is to ensure it never happens again.

You know, I can't change the past,

but I don't want anybody else
to go through this.

The inquiry is taking a long time.

The Metropolitan Police does have an
open investigation

into the Grenfell Tower fire,

but they won't progress that
until the inquiry's finished.

This will be a decades long story
and I think that's very hard

for people affected by it to accept,
because they didn't ask to be

the crusaders in a battle
for justice.

They found themselves in that
position and a lot of them

want to grieve and move on.

But they can't, until they've,
they feel like they've got justice

and change for the people
that they lost.

Yeah, Mariem just came up as well.

Used to have good
conversations with her.

She had a Portuguese boyfriend
and she was learning Portuguese.

Yeah.

On 13 June, 2017, my wife woke me
up with a call from Mariem.

My sister told me there was
a fire in the building.

I believe she could have made it
out,

but I knew she would never
leave our mum.

She started fading away from me...

..rather rapidly.

She kept going all the way till
she was no longer audible.

She became, started to mumble.

Started banging the floor. And
then finally, no longer responsive.

To be more specific, my mum and
sister were poisoned by the smoke,
they were burnt. They were cremated.

I had to listen to them suffer
and I had to listen to them die.

So... The repeated warnings about
health and safety, the complacency.

The neglect.

The misconception that those
living in social housing are simply

a group of uneducated
and second-class citizens.

So let me remind you that Mariem
lived in Grenfell all her life

and died in Grenfell at the young
age of 27.

No family, and I mean no family,
should have to experience

such a catastrophic event which was
entirely preventable.

This was not an accident.

All those people would still be here
if we had just been respected

and listened to.

And they were good people who
didn't deserve...

SHUDDERING BREATH

Um, my kids,
they say they lost their childhood.

They lost people they knew.

My daughter actually finds it
really difficult, still.

She can't talk about this person.

She's still struggling a lot.
Really, really struggles a lot.

SHE EXHALES SLOWLY

Yeah, we lost a bit of ourselves.

Who we were, I suppose.

The government to get off their
arses

and rip every
piece of cladding in this country,

rip it off the buildings
and let people live their lives.

Just get on with it.

Let people sleep at night.

That's all. That's it.
That's all I want.

It's taken many years for me
to sort of, I suppose, process it

and part of that processing
was to be silent.

Now is the right
time for it to be seen.

What my footage shows

is that the residents were fighting
for justice years before the fire.

They're not listening to us.

The same way when we had those
meetings and we had to have an

MP with us or, you know, councillors
so that they'd listen to us.

It's almost four years on, you guys
have done nothing,

we're still waiting.

We want change.

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