Grenfell Tower fire 2017: 72 deaths 'all preventable', damning report says

The deaths "were all preventable," said retired judge Martin Moore-Bick, who led the report, as he released his findings.

"We have lost friends, neighbours and loved ones in the most horrific ways, through greed, corruption, incompetence and neglect," said Natasha Elcock, chair of victims' group Grenfell United.

The government will ensure that this "can never happen again", promised Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who presented an apology to parliament "on behalf of the State".

Seventy-two people died on June 14, 2017, in Britain's worst residential fire since World War II. It took less than half an hour to spread throughout the 24-storey tower block, occupied by mostly modest families, in an upscale area of ​​west London.

The fire was "a national disgrace," London Mayor Sadiq Khan said.

According to the final investigation report, it is "the culmination of decades of failures by government and other bodies with responsibility for the construction sector."

He points in particular to the deregulation policy pursued by successive governments which has put civil servants under pressure to reduce bureaucracy. Concerns have consequently been "ignored, delayed or neglected".

The report also highlights the "systematic dishonesty" of building materials companies. They adopted "deliberate strategies (...) to manipulate the testing process, distort data and mislead the market," the report accuses.

London Fire Brigade firefighters have also been heavily criticised for failing to learn lessons from a previous fire in 2009, which "should have alerted them" to their difficulties "in tackling fires in high-rise buildings".

Entire families were trapped in the flames at Grenfell Tower, including that of Abdulaziz El-Wahabi, 52, who died with his wife Faouzia, 41, and their three children, the youngest of whom was eight.

The youngest victims were a stillborn child and a six-month-old baby, Leena Belkadi, found with her mother in a stairwell between the 19th and 20th floors.

Residents who called emergency services were told to stay in their apartments and wait for help. The order was widely criticised but has since been revised.

The first phase of the investigation, published in October 2019, concluded that the façade cladding was the "main cause" of the spread of the fire.

The disaster left many people living in buildings covered with similar cladding fearing further tragedy.

Some survivors remain haunted by the tragedy, like Emma Louise O'Connor, who told AFP that she still freezes with fear when she hears a fire engine siren.

The UK Conservative government announced in 2022 that developers would be required to contribute more to the cost of removing such cladding.

"Behind Bars"

But the issue is far from being resolved.

In late August in Dagenham, east London, more than 80 people had to be evacuated after waking up to smoke and flames in a building where work to remove "non-compliant" cladding had been partly completed.

Seven years after the tragedy, grieving parents and survivors continue to call for justice. "I want arrests. I want the people responsible for the deaths behind bars," said Calvin Benson of victims' group Justice4Grenfell.

But London police have warned they will not be able to deliver their report until the end of 2025. Prosecutors will then need a year to decide whether to bring criminal charges.

"Due to the volume of evidence and the complexity of the investigation, we will need to take the necessary time (...) before making final charging decisions," the prosecutor's office (CPS) warned on Wednesday.