Grenfell inquiry 'harder than the night itself,' says fire chief

The London Fire Brigade (LFB)  chief has said that facing questions at the Grenfell inquiry was “harder than the night itself”.

Dany Cotton, the Commissioner of the LFB, told of the “horror” of the June 14, 2017 when the high rise block of flats in west London was set alight.

She said appearing at the public inquiry “has been the most difficult thing I have ever done in my career”.

Ms Cotton went on: “I didn’t anticipate really how difficult that  would be and how much harder it would be than the actual night itself.

“Because you’re up, you’re facing scrutiny, you’re facing challenge, you’re facing somebody asking you a load of v difficult questions and you’re trying to give as much help as you can to the inquiry because the main thing is we never want that to happen again to anybody.”

Ms Cotton, who is the first female Commissioner of the LFB and the first woman to be awarded the Queen’s Fire Service Medal, has previously faced criticism for her comments at the inquiry. Giving evidence to the inquiry in September, she said she would not change anything about the response to the blaze.

Addressing headteachers at the Girls’ School Association annual conference in London on Tuesday, she said: “We will learn from that night, all fire services would learn, how could we not?

“We will do thing differently in the future, we will look at things differently. But the basic premise is that we shouldn’t be there in that circumstance, we should never have been dealing with a building that did that. And we did the best we could on the night.”

Ms Cotton said she has struggled to overcome her own PTSD and mental health issues in the aftermath of Grenfell Tower.

“For me, it’s very difficult for me personally, dealing with my own mental health issues, my own PTSD from the night - but trying to manage my organisation, and protect my firefighters who I am so passionate about caring for because they go and do a fantastic job day in day out,” she said.