Grenfell Inquiry day 69: video shows smoke billowing through fire door

However, he listed a series of concerns with the refurbishment works to the tower – which were carried out by Rydon between 2012 and 2016.

He added that he “had several concerns about fire safety both before and after the refurbishment works”.

These included fears about “huge” gaps around the edges of windows in his flat, which he said were filled with mastic filler and chunks of foam.

And he described concerns about gas and non-gas pipes fitted as part of the refurbishment, as well as a dispute with Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation’s (KCTMO) attempt to move the flat’s boiler to above the fuse box and a series of power surges in the tower.

Mr Gomes said that KCTMO responded to his concerns by saying he was “paranoid”.

He also described removing the automatic closer on the new flat front door fitted during the refurbishment because of concerns that it could injure his daughters by closing too quickly.

KCTMO subsequently inspected the flat “and never raised it as an issue”, he told the inquiry.

And he voiced doubts over the building’s smoke ventilation system, which he said he did not hear on the night of the fire or for several weeks beforehand – despite the fact that it would regularly activate without apparent reason.

He suggested that KCTMO had switched off the system because of complaints from residents.

On the night of the fire, Mr Gomes was woken by a neighbour at 1.30am.

After looking out of the window and seeing firefighters running into the building, he said his “instincts kicked in”, and he ran a bath and put wet towels by the doors.

However, a chilling video shown to the inquiry today shows smoke seeping steadily through the gaps around the handle side and bottom of the flat’s front door.

In the 30-second clip, Mr Gomes briefly opens the front door to reveal silence and pitch dark smoke outside which floods into the flat, causing him to cough.

“To be brutally honest, it was because I wanted my loved ones to see what the situation in the tower was like if I did not make it out,” he said in his statement.

He told the inquiry today that you “couldn’t see your hand in front of your face” through the smoke at that time, and that it stung his eyes and made it difficult to breathe.

Mr Gomes told the inquiry he had been running the shower in an attempt to get “wet particles” into the flat to combat the dryness of the smoke – but that the water supply soon cut off.

He described two aborted attempts to leave the flat and 999 calls in which he was told firefighters were coming to rescue his family and a neighbour and her daughter who were seeking refuge.

Eventually, at 3.09am, an emergency call handler told Mr Gomes: “The situation at the moment is there’s going to be some time before they get to you and the best advice we can give you is to make another attempt to leave if you can and get into the stairwell and down.”

Mr Gomes said he felt that previous advice from call handlers had been “misleading”.

“I wish that the operators had been honest and more knowledgeable about the situation from the first phone call as had I known that no help was coming, I would have handled the situation differently,” he said.

“If I knew that no help was coming, I would not have stayed in the burning tower with my family a minute longer.”

By this point, he said the ceiling in the flat was “now dark and full of smoke” and that he could see “red and yellow” near his bedroom window”.

While still on the phone to the fire brigade, he described seeing flames burst through the window and spread across the wall to the ceiling – “like something you see in films”.

At Mr Gomes’ request, the inquiry was played the recording of his final 999 call as the family made their way out of the tower.

“There is no way in which I can convey in words in a statement the abject fear and torment faced by those who got onto the stairwell at around 3:30am,” he explained.

“It is not easy in words to describe the physical and emotional stress and burden of trying to save your own life and the instinct to drive your children and family on so that you will all survive an inferno.”

He described his escape from the building which took half an hour, walking holding hands with his family through “unnatural and toxic” smoke.

So thick was the smoke, he said, that he could not see until sixth or seventh floor.

He described stepping and stumbling over the bodies of “friends and neighbours” on the way down. One person grabbed his calf.

And he described his terror after losing contact with his wife and daughters in the darkness after one said: “Daddy, I can’t go on anymore, I can’t.”

“I was calling out to them but could not hear any responses. I was totally beside myself with fear and hurt,” he recalled.

He said he believed the children had passed out about halfway down the tower, overcome by smoke and toxins.

Eventually firefighters found Ms Perestrelo and the couple’s daughters, who in fact escaped the tower before Mr Gomes.

Outside, Mr Gomes described seeing the “towering inferno” of Grenfell and being reunited with his family.

They were then taken in an ambulance to King’s College Hospital in south London, with Ms Perestrelo and the two girls put into an induced coma due to their “critical” condition.

Ms Perestrelo was given a 50-50 chance of survival due to cyanide poisoning.

Mr Gomes said he has been told his daughters had “medically unprecedented” levels of cyanide poisoning.

Describing the family’s psychological problems since the fire, Mr Gomes said: “I kept thinking of my son and how I had let down him and my family.”

He expressed “nothing but praise for the ordinary firefighters of the London Fire Brigade” – but criticised advice he was given on the phone.

He said: “Why could they have not rung me back and said to me that we were on our own and no one can get to us? We were given false information and false hope of rescue. That delayed us in leaving the tower.”

“The delay in telling us to evacuate nearly killed us, and it did kill my baby son. I have no doubt of that.”

He also touched on his experience of being rehoused after the fire, saying it was “disgusting” that Kensington and Chelsea “left me and failed me at my time of need”.

He said the council’s and KCTMO’s attitude towards the family “were inadequate and contemptuous”.

Ms Perestrelo had to arrange the family’s temporary accommodation herself after they were “pushed” by the council to leave emergency hotel accommodation.

They are now in a permanent home.

“It is not a case of blaming somebody or some organisation; it is a case of finding out what happened and why it was allowed to happen,” Mr Gomes said, concluding his written evidence.

“On that stairwell, that night, money and cost were not relevant. Families’, and in particular children’s, lives were being lost. I hope the inquiry forces the government to put human life at the top of the list, as the long-term costs of multiple injuries and death is beyond calculation.”

Mr Gomes was the last survivor to give evidence to phase one of the inquiry, which will resume on Monday with evidence from the Metropolitan Police, the London Ambulance Service, the council and KCTMO. The inquiry continues.