Archbishop demands no stone left unturned in Grenfell Tower fire inquiry

The archbishop of York has demanded that no stone be left unturned in the public inquiry and police investigation into the Grenfell Tower fire, saying there can be no reconciliation without truth and justice.

He also called on the community to turn its anger into a creative force to be reckoned with.

John Sentamu was delivering a sermon at a service at St Helen’s church in north Kensington, London, in memory of five people who died in the 14 June inferno: Mary Mendy, 54, and her daughter Khadija Saye, 24, Berkti Haftom, 29, and her son Beruk, 12, and five-year-old Isaac Paulos.

To applause, he told the packed congregation: “During the inquest and investigation, no stone should be left unturned … Every grain of sand must be turned in order to discover the truth, because the truth sets all of us free.”

With truth, he said, comes the possibility of justice and reconciliation. “You cannot have reconciliation without justice and truth.”

He said he was praying that the deaths of the five people remembered at the service and all those who died in the fire would not be in vain. Sentamu ended his sermon by performing a traditional lament on African drums.

Emotional tributes were paid to Mendy and Saye by relatives and friends, and a message was read from David Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham, and his wife Nicola, who knew Saye, a promising young artist, well.

“I am proud and incredibly blessed to have been close to the light that shone on Khadija,” Lammy’s message said.

Ambrose Mendy, a cousin, described the disaster as a disgrace. “People’s lives have been taken away from them, generations of hope, homes which people have invested their life in, are gone,” he said.

“This tall coffin in the air, is perhaps the best way to describe it. What’s going to happen to it? How long is it going to remain there as a timely reminder of man’s inhumanity to man?

Father Georgia Dimtsu of St Gabriel Ethiopian Orthodox church, spoke of the “big loss to the Ethiopian community” of the Haftoms and Isaac. “It is terrifying, it’s tragic,” he said.

The Gospel for Grenfell choir sang a version of Bridge Over Troubled Water, the song that has become an anthem to the victims of the fire and the north Kensington community.

Speaking outside the church after the service, Sentamu said he understood the community’s anger over the causes and consequences of the fire.

But, he added: “What I want to say to them is that when Nelson Mandela came out of prison, and the people were very, very angry, he said ‘you are right and justified to be angry but I want you to use your anger, to direct it to change, don’t use it to destroy’.

“I want that message to go out. Anger, yes, but don’t let it destroy you. That anger needs to become a force to be reckoned with in the search for truth, justice and reconciliation. Anger can be destructive or creative, and I want [this community] to be creative.”

Sentamu said the fire had been “unbelievably heartrending”, and there were many questions to be answered.

“The council had enough money to do things properly, but they didn’t do it, so all of this has to be investigated. This business of the poor living cheek by jowl with people who are very well off … income inequality is a bugbear for this nation. The gap between incomes is too huge.”

It would not be easy to get at the truth, “but you’ve got to stick at it”.