Grenfell families have criticised the final inquiry report on the disaster for failing to fully address the disproportionate impact the tragedy had on diverse and marginalised communities.
The damning report on the Grenfell Tower fire was published on Wednesday and found decades of failings by central government and corporations. It concluded that all 72 deaths in the 2017 blaze were avoidable.
The chair of the inquiry, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, blamed “false and misleading claims” made by manufacturers over the safety of insulation used in the tower’s refurbishment, and said safety concerns raised by the tower’s tenants were ignored.
However, for some bereaved families the 1,700-page report did not go far enough in investigating the disproportionate impact the fire had on residents from marginalised backgrounds.
According to submissions to the inquiry, 85% of the tower’s residents who died in the fire were of Black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) origin.
Nabil Choucair, who lost his mother, his sister, her husband and their three daughters in the disaster, told the Guardian: “Most of the people that were affected or died were of BAME origin. They were never listened to or their problems dealt with.
“We were fighting to get [the inquiry] to look at [racism] and they didn’t. You have to look at how … the families were being treated differently.”
Choucair, along with other bereaved relatives, survivors and their lawyers, called on the inquiry in 2020 to look at the role of institutional racism and for it to be included in the terms of reference, with one lawyer describing it as the “elephant in the room”.
The final report into the fire did address concerns about racism, saying: “Our response to those who wanted us to investigate racial and social discrimination has always been that we would look out for it and that if we came across any evidence that racial or social prejudice might have affected any of the decisions that led, directly or indirectly, to the disaster, we would examine it thoroughly and publish our findings, as befits an inquiry seeking to uncover the truth.”
However, it said the inquiry found “no evidence that any of the decisions that resulted in the creation of a dangerous building or the calamitous spread of fire were affected by racial or social prejudice”.
Moore-Bick said the inquiry did see “some evidence of racial discrimination” in the way families were treated after the fire. In particular, the inquiry found the council showed “no regard” for the cultural or religious needs of the Muslim residents, who were observing Ramadan.
The report also found evidence that the tower’s landlord, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation, “failed over the course of years to treat residents of the tower and the Lancaster West Estate more generally with the courtesy and respect due to them”.
Yvette Williams, co-founder of the campaign group Justice4Grenfell, said the failure to include race in the inquiry’s terms of reference meant society could not learn properly from the findings.
“That’s what’s glaring for us,” she said. “That if you don’t get those terms of reference right, you don’t learn from it … there is a lead up to Grenfell and it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Race and diversity plays a huge part in that.
“If the fire happened somewhere else, where there were different tenants, would we be where we are today?” she asked. “Who are the majority of people who make up social housing tenants in cities like London? So there’s the evidence, who’s there and who’s not there.”
Shah Aghlani, whose mother died in the fire, and Paulos Tekle, who lost his five-year-old son, also said the inquiry should have addressed racial discrimination more fully.
“If you want to deal with culture, then you have to ask, why is it that so many, such a big percentage of the residents or the victims were of ethnic minorities and brown people?” Aghlani said.
Tekle, who welcomed the inquiry’s recommendations, said he has also been left without “closure” as he does not know what happened in the final minutes of his son’s life. He said he wanted the firefighters who led them out of the tower to appear at the inquiry.
In response to the report, the leader of Kensington and Chelsea council, Elizabeth Campbell, said it “failed the residents of Grenfell Tower” and it will “learn from every single criticism in the report”.
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry declined to comment.
