SCOTLAND Yard has said it could bring charges of manslaughter against anyone found culpable for the Grenfell Tower blaze that has left at least 79 dead.
Metropolitan Police Detective Superintendent Fiona McCormack told journalists yesterday that documents had been seized from a “number of organisations” connected to the high rise and its cladding.
She said: “We are looking at every criminal offence from manslaughter onwards. We are looking at health and safety and fire safety offences and we are reviewing every company at the moment involved in the building and refurbishment of Grenfell Tower.”
The superintendent confirmed that the origins of the blaze lay in a faulty Hotpoint fridge-freezer. She also added that the cladding on the 24-storey building did not pass forensic fire safety tests police carried out in the last week.
“All I can say at the moment is they [tiles and insulation] don’t pass any safety tests,” she said. “What we are being told at the moment by the Building Research Establishment is that the cladding and insulation failed all safety tests.”
Meanwhile, a tower block in Camden, north London, is to be evacuated following the Government’s UK-wide search for tower blocks with flammable cladding.
Camden Council said last night residents of 161 flats in the Taplow block will be decanted while four more towers on Chalcots estate will also need thermal cladding removed.
A total of 14 buildings across nine local authority areas in Manchester, Hounslow and Plymouth, as well as Camden, have been found to be at risk, according to the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Regarding the number of victims claimed by the Grenfell inferno, McCormack admitted police may not know the exact number of those in the building at the time of the fire.
“Every complete body has been removed from the building,” the detective said. “I remain really concerned, though, that we do not have a complete picture. There may well be people who no one has contacted us about – who they know were in the building or have close links to Grenfell Tower.”
Police fear that illegal immigrants living in the block may be unwilling to come forward and admit they lost friends or family in the fire in case the government deports them.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has called for an amnesty for people who may have been living in the tower illegally.
McCormack added: “We are not interested in people’s reasons for not telling us sooner and, as the mayor has already said, people should not be nervous about contacting us.
“The Home Office has assured us that they are not interested in people’s immigration status and we are not interested in looking at that. What we are interested in is making sure that we know who is missing and we take every possible step to establish if they are safe and well.”
She added: “We have been in Grenfell Tower, from top to bottom, last week ... but our forensic search may not be complete until the end of the year.”
Scottish Minister Angela Constance said the authorities north of the Border had almost finished checks of the country’s tower blocks.
Constance said: “This week, we asked local authorities to give us further information about their high-rise domestic buildings. They have reported that they have over 500 high-rise domestic buildings in their areas.
“All 32 local authorities have advised the Scottish Government no council or housing association high-rise domestic buildings have the type of cladding reported to have been used in the Grenfell tower – aluminium composite material (ACM). Twenty-four local authorities have also reported to us no privately owned high-rise domestic buildings have ACM cladding. The remainder are completing their investigations.”
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