‘Grenfell is a warning to the world’: The survivors still searching for justice

It was payday – Emma Louise O’Connor and her partner Luke had treated themselves to a pizza and gone to bed in their 20th-floor flat, only to be awoken by a fire alarm in the early hours. The date was 14 June 2017 and, 16 floors below Emma’s home at Grenfell, a fridge-freezer in Flat 16 had caught ablaze.

At 1.21am – less than 40 minutes after the fire began – Emma, who has mobility issues, and her partner managed to leave the building, taking a smoke-filled lift down to the ground floor. They had escaped just before the blaze took hold across the tower block, engulfing the flammable cladding, in a tragedy that killed 72.

“I went into shock,” says Emma. “I remember being dragged away from the scene by my partner who took me to my mum’s nearby. Looking at the building burning, I couldn’t actually believe what I was watching.”

The memories of that night are still clear in the 35-year-old’s mind but, for her and other survivors – as well as the wider community in West London – the search for answers and accountability goes on.

On Wednesday, the Grenfell inquiry will return its final report, focused on how the tower block came to be in the condition that allowed the deadly fire to take hold and spread. The phase one report, published in October 2019, focused on the events of that night and the response, but campaigners criticised the failure to take action on the back of its recommendations.

“Justice looks different to many people but, for me, justice has definitely not been served,” says Emma, who has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and survivor’s guilt.

“I want to see them get rid of the cladding on buildings everywhere. I also want to see the government sort of shape up now and start giving funding back to our fire brigade, which has been stripped of funding over the years.”

Damel Carayol, 61, was overcome with emotion as he talked about his cousin Khadija Saye and her mother Mary Mendy who died in the Grenfell fire.

Khadija, aged 24, was a celebrated photographer of Gambian heritage, on the cusp of wide recognition for her work at the time of death.

Her mother Mary was a carer by profession and Mr Carayol fondly remembers her as a warm, family-oriented woman who loved to cook and take care of people. Sometimes Khadija would help her mother to look after the clients she’d care for.

“They both tried to escape,” Mr Carayol, who visited the scene after the blaze and retraced his late relatives’ final moments, tells The Independent.

“My main thing was to go and leave a bunch of sunflowers in the tower on that day – on the eighth and 13th floors, where Khadijah and Mary were found – and to go through the journey that they must have gone through from their 20th floor flat.

“It was an extremely painful and difficult thing to do.”

Grappling with the void left in his family’s lives and the ongoing fight for justice has been a difficult process, Mr Carayol, a singer who lives in north London, explains.

“It's a double whammy, trying to grieve and deal with what's happened while fighting people who are trying to evade responsibility,” he says.

Damel criticised the inquiry’s structure, arguing that it has allowed those responsible to avoid accountability.

“Phase two should have been the phase one. Focusing on the firefighters and the response of the night – as was the case in phase one – is important but the causes and what led up to the fire should have come first,” he says.

“From that alone, my feeling is they've turned it around and allowed people who are responsible to get off the hook.”

Damel says he hopes the new Labour government will act on the report, adding: “There is hope about the report. I don’t think the inquiry can miss and not report on the crucial evidence that has come out. It’s what happens next. How will it be responded to? How will recommendations will be implemented?

That’s where the trepidation and doubt comes in. Looking at the first phase of the inquiry, there are still recommendations that haven’t been implemented. We suspect the response [to the second phase] is going to be similar.”

Survivors of the fire, bereaved families and experts have warned that issues of race and class were “inextricably linked” with the Grenfell fire, given that 85 per cent of the residents who died in the fire were from ethnic minority and low-income communities. Some 40 per cent of residents in high-rise, social housing properties are from said communities.

Ahead of the report’s release, campaign group Justice 4 Grenfell said: “For over seven years, those affected have been waiting for answers, change and accountability. The delays that have plagued this inquiry – though perhaps inevitable due to its complexity – have only compounded the pain and frustration felt by survivors, bereaved families, and the community.”

“What happened with Grenfell is a warning for the world,” Mr Carayol continues. “It’s a matter of how we organise our societies around the world, about disparity and how we see people who have or don’t have.

“It raises questions about the local authority and how it would neglect a certain set of people because they’re seen in a certain way. I saw Grenfell happening as a cause of that neglect; for example, local residents were complaining about things that could cause a fire and if they were listened to, perhaps the fire wouldn’t have happened.

“I’m speaking out because people have to be reminded about Grenfell, what led up to it and why it happened.”

More than 5,000 residential homes around England have been identified with unsafe cladding, including a block of flats in east London, Dagenham, which went up in flames last week. Firefighters battled the blaze at a seven-storey block of flats on Freshwater Road, forcing more than 100 residents to flee for their lives.

The London Fire Brigade confirmed that there were “known safety” issues with the building and cladding on the building had been in the process of being removed, with scaffolding visible at the site.

“It was hard to listen much to the news about Dagenham,” Carayol adds. “The first thought that came to my mind was the residents. Has everyone got out? Is everyone hurt? Anyone injured first? The next thing was what caused it.

“So it’s an ongoing struggle and whenever the topic comes up, like now, I’ll feel the emotion just the same as that very night that Grenfell happened.”

Isis Amlak, 58, lives close to the site of the tower, which still stands to this day, though it is covered in a protective wrap that bears a green heart and the message “forever in our hearts”.

She tells The Independent that the systemic failures and lack of justice have compounded the sense of ongoing trauma within the community.

Isis, a north Kensington resident for over 30 years, is also still mourning the suicide of a close friend and Grenfell campaigner, Amanda Beckles, believed to be linked to the fire’s aftermath.

Ms Beckles killed herself in December 2018 after writing a note saying the disaster, which she witnessed, had wrecked her life.

“It’s extremely traumatic, of course, especially when you're very close to a sister and you don't realise what they’re going through,” Isis tells The Independent.

“It's a real tragedy and shows the ripple effects of the Grenfell fire. It didn't end with the institutional murder of at least 72 members of the community; the devastation within the wider community is a part of the narrative, too, and the legacy that remains in north Kensington until this day.”

In the meantime, images of the charred wreck of a tower masks under the wrap weigh heavily on the minds of many locals and some have demanded the block of flats be removed, citing the adverse mental health impact it has on those living nearby.

The Grenfell Tower Memorial Commission has suggested that a permanent memorial is unveiled in the tower’s place.

“People are still remembering those who walked our streets, faces we saw of people who died in that fire, and their relatives and their friends,” Isis continues.

“Every year, we go on these walks to commemorate it on the 14th of June. The children who were babies at the time – maybe aged three or four – are now older and that tragedy has kind of shaped their identity, which is sad.

“And the biggest issue is the lack of justice.”