Grenfell Inquiry day 73: TMO boss failed to pass information to firefighters

Shortly after this, at 6am, Mr Black emailed other KCTMO employees asking them to pull together information about the refurbishment of the tower, saying: “RBKC [Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea] will put out a holding state[ment] but already asking these questions.”

Mr Black, however, did not forward the list of residents on to the London Fire Brigade (LFB) until 7.56am even though, the inquiry heard, firefighters had been seeking it since 4.30am.

In his witness statement, he said he had told firefighters that KCTMO would be able to provide a list of registered tenants and leaseholders, but not an up-to-date roster of occupants and visitors.

Nick Layton, a liaison officer for RBKC, told the Grenfell Tower Inquiry he first asked Mr Black for the list at 4.50am and then hourly until he eventually sent it.

Asked about these requests, Mr Black said that he didn’t remember any of them.

Asked why he didn’t forward the list on immediately, he told the inquiry: “I didn’t realise they wanted it.”

The inquiry also heard that firefighters repeatedly asked for up-to-date plans of Grenfell Tower.

In footage from one police officer’s body camera, Andy Roe, incident commander of LFB, can be seen telling the council’s liaison officer at 7.13am that he had been asking for plans for “a very long time”.

Mr Roe added: “The fact that you’ve not been able to get me a set of plans is a major deficiency and will be highlighted.”

Emails submitted as evidence to the inquiry showed that Mr Black did eventually send plans to the LFB, but the time signatures on the emails were inconsistent.

An email sent from Mr Noble at 7.14am had the plans attached. Mr Black forwarded this to the LFB, in an email recorded as having been sent at 5.16am.

Richard Millett, counsel to the inquiry, pointed out that one of these times must be incorrect.

Mr Black was at the tower for around six hours. Describing what he did while he was there, he told the inquiry he was “standing there, responding to phone calls, speaking to people on the phone. Not very much, as I said because I wasn’t part of the structure. Speaking to my team generally”.

During Mr Layton’s evidence, he was also asked about the length of time the council took to send a dangerous structures engineer (DSE) to the tower to judge whether it was at risk of collapse.

According to the LFB’s incident log, firefighters first sought an engineer at 2.17am. At 3.15am, the request was made again by the same radio operator, who wrote: “Stress this is matter of urgency and priority.”

A body-worn camera shows footage from 3.27am in which Mr Roe says he thinks an entire corner of the building is ready to collapse.

Mr Layton noted this down. He admitted to the inquiry that this “should have” prompted him to realise a DSE was necessary, but it didn’t.

According to Mr Layton, he was only directly asked for such an engineer by the LFB at 4.15am, when he arranged this.

Body-worn footage from 4.39 shows Dany Cotton saying that she had been asking for a DSE for two hours.

At one stage in his evidence, Mr Black was asked if his involvement on the night was “essentially passive”. He said it was.