A LEADING GRENFELL campaigner has issued a new demand for justice on behalf of those killed.
In a passionate statement, Joe Delaney, a spokesperson for Justice 4 Grenfell, claimed council officials were “spending millions per day per month on legal fees and representation”, but questioned when why it would ever cost that much “to tell the truth?”.
Appearing on GB News, he said: “I don’t want lessons to be learned. I want prison sentences. That’s what I want to see. Unless we see someone go to prison for this, the Grenfell disaster, then killing people in the course of this becomes just another cost of doing business because all they face are a few fines. Is that the sort of country that people want to live in? Where it might be a stack of money handed over if you’re accidentally murdered by some corporation, building firm or some useless council?
“This is a disgraceful situation that we are in, where five and a half years later, we’re just asking someone to go to court for this, let alone face a trial for it. If they say they’re so innocent and keep telling us they’re sorry, why won’t they admit liability in terms of any of the claims that have been put against them?”
The campaigner’s comments come ahead of a play that will focus the Grenfell Tower Inquiry.
He said: “It’s a play everyone should see. It’s people acting but it’s real life. But we get more theatrics from the local and national government. This country is failing us. This is a Grenfell system failure and a UK system failure, sadly.”
The Grenfell: System Failure play is based entirely on the words of those involved in the final phase of the inquiry which ended in November 2022. It claims it “interrogates why the testing regime failed to warn of the danger of installing inflammable materials, why manufacturers promoted such products with no regard to safety, why government regulations ignored the dangers and were not updated, and why politicians failed to ensure proper oversight”.
Through the testimonies of bereaved residents, the play explores “how they were failed by the London Fire Brigade on the night and abandoned by the Local Authority in the chaos of the fire’s aftermath”.
Joe added: “I’ve seen absolutely disgusting things. I mean, Kensington and Chelsea Council spent two million pounds putting in and taking out a cycle lane within about a space of four weeks. That’s more than what they were willing to spend on the local community centre, it was more than they are willing to spend on Grenfell recovery services and it was more than they were willing to spend on certain properties in order to fix them up.People are still living in dangerous conditions with dangerous landlords.”
