Emotions run high as Grenfell Tower fire inquiry opens

Almost a year after the Grenfell Tower fire, the first substantive hearings of the inquiry into the disaster will open on Monday with tributes from friends and relatives of the 72 victims.

For the next two weeks, the lives of those who died will be remembered in a series of commemorations delivered in the form of video recordings and personal statements. The proceedings will be streamed live on the inquiry’s website.

The initial sessions are being held in a conference centre at the Millennium Gloucester hotel, in South Kensington, London, where counselling support and NHS teams will be on hand to help survivors of the fire and the bereaved. A prayer room has also been provided, as the hearings start during Ramadan and many of the victims were Muslim.

No time limit has been imposed on any of the personal portraits. Some are expected to be as short as a few minutes, but others may last up to an hour.

The main evidence-collecting sessions will commence on 4 June with detailed outlines from lawyers representing the inquiry as well as the organisations and individuals who have been granted core participant status.

What is termed phase 1 of the inquiry will focus on the sequence of the events on 14 June 2017. It will include details of fire safety and prevention measures in the 24-storey building. How and where the blaze started, its spread from a fourth-floor flat to the rest of the building and the evacuation of residents from their homes will all feature in this first phase.

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Lawyers for the victims have cautioned that it may not be possible to separate the narrative from more fundamental questions about the cause of the fire, which are due to be dealt with in a second phase of hearings.

So far the inquiry has 562 core participants, of whom 533 are individuals and 29 organisations. It is believed to be the largest number ever accredited to a public inquiry in the UK.

The evidence-collecting sessions and the rest of the inquiry, which is expected to run into next year, will be held at Holborn Bars on High Holborn, near the Inns of Court and the legal heart of London.

There will be no hearings during the week of the fire’s anniversary on 14 June, and the inquiry will resume the following week with presentations by several expert witnesses.

There will be presentations by Prof Luke Bisby, of Edinburgh University, who specialises in fire safety engineering, Prof Niamh Nic Daéid, of the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at Dundee University, and Dr Barbara Lane, a chartered fire engineer at Arup.

More harrowing evidence is likely to emerge in July when firefighters will speak about how they fought the blaze and carried out search and rescue operations as the staircases filled with smoke. The accounts of the bereaved and survivors are not scheduled to be heard until early September following a summer break.

Although disputes over the composition of a panel to sit alongside the inquiry’s chair, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, may have been resolved, other disputes are expected to arise.

One issue is a restriction on lawyers representing core participants, who will only be able to question witnesses “with the permission” of the chairman and, in most cases, as long as they give five days’ notice of what they want to ask. The chair may allow questions to be put without notice if he wishes to.

Gloria De Piero, the shadow justice minister, has raised concerns that tenants are finding it harder than ever to hold their landlords to account due to cuts to legal aid for housing claims.

Help for housing cases has plummeted by almost a third since government cuts to legal aid came into effect five years ago, according to the latest figures.

“Preventing vulnerable tenants from accessing legal advice and support for basic housing issues such as disrepair is a false economy and is instead pushing people into desperate situations as problems escalate,” De Piero said.

A time to grieve

For survivors and the families of the bereaved, the opening of the inquiry is seen as a moment to come together and grieve following months of difficulty. On top of handling bereavement, shock and trauma, many of the survivors have found themselves having to campaign for better representation at the inquiry, for changes to the building regulations and even for the right to give testimony about their loved ones at the start of the inquiry.

“We have been so busy we haven’t had time to grieve,” said Sandra Ruiz, who lost her niece in the fire and is a member of Grenfell United, the survivors group. “We haven’t had time for ourselves. This will give us time to focus on that process.”

They are braced for days of high emotion. “We don’t know how people will react and what support people will need,” Ruiz said. “No one has been through something like this.”

They hope the fortnight of tributes will refocus their energy and commitment for a process they know will be long and suspect will be tough. Ruiz said: “The inquiry will be a drawn-out experience and we will expect some positive and harsh realities.” Robert Booth

• This article was amended on 21 May 2018 to update the number of core participants in the inquiry.