Grenfell survivors face new fight for justice as police seek to charge those responsible

A Silent Walk for Grenfell demands justice (Pic: Guy Smallman)

Up to 57 people and 20 companies could face criminal charges over the Grenfell fire, the police have said.

But justice campaigners know they will have to fight to hold those responsible to account.

On 14 June 2017 a fire in Grenfell Tower, west London, killed 72 people after the Tories, the council and housing bosses and corporations treated residents’ lives with contempt and ignored their concerns.

Moyra Samuels, a community campaigner for justice for Grenfell, told Socialist Worker, “The cases won’t be handed over to the Crown Prosecution Service until September. Then the CPS will make a decision as to who’s going to be charged, and the case is likely to only begin in 2029.”

“That’s 13 years after the fire,” she added.

A public inquiry was ordered after the fire. It took seven years and eventually cost £178 million.

But activists like Moyra had pushed for criminal charges from the start.

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“We wanted the criminal case to start first. But we were told, ‘No, it’s not possible.’ We were told to wait till the end of the inquiry.

“We knew what the consequences of that would be. It would enable the corporations and the establishment to get their stories straight,” she said.

But Moyra was clear that people will hold the CPS to account when the criminal trials begin.

“When they do begin, we’ll need a big campaign to hold them to account, in the way that we did with Stephen Lawrence,” she said.

“The bereaved and the survivors are never going to be able to move forward until we see prosecutions.”

“The bar for corporate manslaughter is very high, legally speaking,” Moyra explained.

“And what about Arconic, this multi-billion pound company that supplies parts to drones that are being used to murder Palestinians. Are they going to be prosecuted?” she added.

Arconic manufactured the flammable cladding that covered the tower—and was one of the main criminals behind the social murder at Grenfell.

“This highlights that, basically, the lives of working class communities count for nothing when compared to the pursuit of profits,” Moyra said.