A Grenfell Tower resident raised multiple complaints about fire safety in the years before an inferno killed 72 people but the council landlord “stamped on and marginalised” resident worries, the inquiry into the disaster has been told.
Ed Daffarn, 57, who escaped from the 16th floor eight months after warning on his blog of the risk of a “serious fire in a tower block”, said he raised the need for an evacuation plan, problems with a faulty fire door and changes to floor numbers ordered in the refurbishment, all of which the inquiry has already found led to increased loss of life. However, he said he was “stigmatised as a troublemaker”.
Daffarn was giving evidence in person at the inquiry for the first time, after becoming well known for predicting the disaster on the Grenfell Action blog which he co-founded to raise resident concerns about the conduct of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) and its tenants management organisation (TMO).
It said: “Only an incident that results in serious loss of life of KCTMO residents will allow the external scrutiny to occur that will shine a light on the practices that characterise the malign governance of this non-functioning organisation.”
In a 127-page statement, he claimed RBKC and the TMO treated residents with “hostility”, “neglect” and “contempt” and allowed the tower to deteriorate into a “slum-like condition”.
He said: “This local authority had a third of a billion pounds in reserves, yet its senior officers appeared to prioritise value for money over respect for the wellbeing of residents and their safety.”
The TMO last month told the inquiry it never “adopted a dismissive attitude towards residents or indeed towards their complaints and concerns”. It claimed Daffarn advanced “a highly personalised narrative” which only represented a handful of people.
Daffarn’s evidence included seven complaints relating to fire safety made before the fire. These included a complaint about a defective door closer on a neighbouring flat about which Daffarn said he was effectively accused of lying about by Peter Maddison, the TMO’s director of assets. The complaint was not upheld and the door remained unfixed. The inquiry has already concluded defective fire doors led to the spread of toxic smoke and gases on the night of the fire.
He raised concerns about the adequacy of stay put advice with both the TMO and the London fire brigade (LFB) and eight months before the fire he wrote on his blog: “Anyone who witnessed the recent tower block at Shepherds Court, in nearby Shepherd’s Bush, will know that the advice to remain in our properties would have led to certain fatalities and we are calling on our landlord to reconsider the advice that they have so badly circulated”.
In a previously unseen email to the LFB in March 2014, raising concerns about fire safety at the block following a major power surge, Daffarn wrote: “Do the TMO officers not realise the danger they are placing themselves and their future liberty in if a serious outbreak of fire should ever occur in Grenfell Tower?”
He also asked where people should muster in the event of a building evacuation but was informed by the LFB there was a stay put policy. This didn’t comfort him.
“I had always thought about if there was a gas explosion or something quite catastrophic happening and there was a need to get people out of the building in a quick way,” he said. “The stay put policy was never a satisfactory policy for Grenfell Tower. It was a very convenient policy for the TMO because it meant they didn’t have to do anything.”
The inquiry has already found the failure to scrap the stay put policy earlier on the night of the fire cost numerous lives.
Under cross-examination by counsel to the inquiry, Richard Millett QC, Daffarn said: “Pretty much doing anything with the TMO was a waste of time. They weren’t dealing with our concerns … we didn’t have faith in this organisation to respond to our needs.”
When asked why he sometimes used a blog to raise issues rather than always address the landlord bodies, he said he found that the TMO was more likely to respond to blog posts than private correspondence. “When we blogged, they acted,” Daffarn said. “If we didn’t blog about it they didn’t act.”
The inquiry continues.
