The Guardian – Grenfell: a disaster caused by dishonesty and greed
The Guardian leads with the inquiry into the Grenfell fire, which found companies operated with “systematic dishonesty” and that all 72 deaths were avoidable. The paper features pictures of the victims of the fire. Police are under pressure to speed up their criminal investigation but the scale of the inquiry means no charges will be announced until late 2026 at the earliest, the paper adds.
Police under pressure to accelerate criminal investigation into Grenfell fire
Police are under pressure to accelerate the criminal investigation into the Grenfell Tower fire after an excoriating report found that companies operated with “systematic dishonesty” and that all 72 deaths were avoidable.
A seven-year public inquiry culminated on Wednesday in a report that laid bare “decades of failure” by central government and egregious behaviour by a string of multimillion-dollar firms involved in the tower’s disastrous refurbishment.
Sir Martin Moore-Bick, who led the inquiry, found that firms which made the combustible materials used on the tower – Arconic, Celotex and Kingspan – “engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to … mislead the market”.
He identified incompetence, “cavalier” attitudes and “concealment” of wrongdoing, while Grenfell residents’ safety concerns were dismissed by their local authority and the landlord of the west London building they called home.
After the publication of the long-awaited findings, Natasha Elcock, chair of the families’ group Grenfell United, sent a message to the Metropolitan police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), saying: “It is now on to you to deliver justice.”
Today’s news summary – Paper Talk
If you are someone who reads every perspective of a story, here is a news summary of all of today’s front pages from today’s newspapers; summarised in a 2-minute read
Editorial 05 September 2024.
Thursday’s front pages are dominated by the final report from the Grenfell fire inquiry which lays out the multiple failures that led to the 2017 tragedy.
The report of the six-year public inquiry found that the Grenfell Tower fire that killed 72 people in 20217 was the result of a chain of failures by governments, “dishonest” companies and a lack of strategy by the fire service, the final report of the six-year public inquiry has concluded.
