A criminal investigation has been launched into a fatal fire in a two-bedroom flat in which at least 18 people were living, with some sleeping on the kitchen floor.
The privately owned flat in a Tower Hamlets council block was rented to mostly Bangladeshi couriers and students paying £100 a week, according to one resident.
A fire started in the early hours of 5 March, possibly sparked by a faulty e-bike battery. Most of those people squeezed into bunk beds and sleeping on the floor escaped, but Mizanur Rahman had to be rescued by firefighters and later died in hospital.
The death has also been referred to Poplar coroner’s court, where the coroner may open an inquest. Scotland Yard said it was in contact with the council and coroner. Shelter, the housing charity, described it as a “horrific case”.
The 17 survivors remain homeless and many have lost their possessions, including passports. They are being put up in a hotel by the council.
Most have no relatives in this country and 10 of them have no recourse to public funds, which means they cannot claim benefits or housing assistance. It usually means they are subject to immigration controls. Sixteen have been interviewed so far.
Zubayer Khan, 34, a fast-food worker and student who lived in the flat, welcomed the criminal inquiry. He said he paid cash to a woman who came daily to the property to collect money from the different residents.
The property in Maddocks House on the Tarling West estate was registered in August 2022 as a house of multiple occupation. The landlord is also listed on the Land Registry as paying £107,000 in 2005 to buy the leasehold. The licence limited occupation to three people, the Guardian understands.
“If someone has died, it’s the duty of the state to find out what happened,” said Khan, who works in a McDonald’s. “We need the council and the law enforcement agencies to sort out this problem.”
Potential sanctions for a landlord breaching licence conditions include a ban, a fine and a civil penalty of up to £30,000. The flat is one of 732,000 homes where people are living in overcrowded conditions in England, according to official figures.
Minority ethnic renters are several times more likely to suffer from overcrowding than white renters, official data shows. The 2021 census revealed that more than one in five households in Tower Hamlets are overcrowded.
Residents repeatedly warned the council landlord about the dangerously overcrowded flat, starting in late 2021 and with concerns continuing throughout last year, the Guardian previously revealed.
A spokesperson for Tower Hamlets council confirmed: “We had visited this property previously following complaints and issued enforcement. We are now carrying out a criminal investigation under the Housing Act.
“It is shocking that Mizanur Rahman has lost his life and our thoughts are with his family and friends.”
The enforcement action resulted in the property being licensed as an HMO.
Polly Neate, the chief executive of Shelter, said: “No one’s life should be put at risk by dangerous housing that should never have been let out in the first place.
“People are trapped living in these dire conditions as a consequence of the chronic shortage of genuinely affordable homes, and because renting is so poorly regulated that landlords can get away with it. The criminal investigation must now establish what happened in this horrific case.”
She called for a national register of all landlords so that every landlord can be held to account and for funding to be given to councils to proactively inspect homes and ensure they are safe.
There are approximately 38,000 private rented properties in Tower Hamlets, about 15,000 of which are licensed by the council.
