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Grenfell fire risk assessor misled KCTMO over qualifications, inquiry hears
The consultant who carried out fire risk assessments (FRAs) of Grenfell Tower misled Kensington and Chelsea Management Organisation (KCTMO) about his qualifications before he was hired, the public inquiry into the disaster heard today.
Carl Stokes added a series of letters to his name – called ‘post-nominals’ – indicating qualifications that he did not have in a sample FRA provided to KCTMO in August 2010, shortly before it offered him a contract.
The document described the sample FRA as having been completed by “Mr C Stokes, ACIArb, FPA Dip FP (Europe), Fire Eng (FPA), NEBOSH, FIA BS 5839 System Designer, Competent Engineer BS 5266, IFE Assessor/Auditor (FSO).”
This same passage also appeared in the FRAs Mr Stokes subsequently undertook for KCTMO, which managed the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s housing stock, including Grenfell Tower.
But the inquiry heard today that several of these post-nominals either did not exist or were “thoroughly misleading truncations” for training courses he had attended.
For example, there is no “Fire Eng (FPA)” post-nominal, although Mr Stokes agreed today that this may lead someone reading the document to believe he was a qualified fire engineer.
Under cross-examination, he claimed: “My understanding was I was putting down courses attended. I was never - there was never anything else to deceive or even highlight anything else but these are courses and competencies.”
“With hindsight, it would have been a lot easier if I had have made it clear,” he added.
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But challenged by inquiry lead counsel Richard Millett QC, he accepted that he must have known at the time that he had either invented these post-nominals or based them on training courses.
Between September 2010 and 2017, Mr Stokes carried out FRAs across the KCTMO’s stock, including five at Grenfell Tower.
Inside Housing revealed shortly after the Grenfell Tower fire that Mr Stokes, as the sole employee of his company CS Stokes and Associates, had been the risk assessor for the block.
In an expert report for the inquiry, Colin Todd – whose firm is called CS Todd and Associates – said the manner in which Mr Stokes had set out these post-nominals would “significantly mislead clients and potential clients as to his qualifications”.
Mr Stokes refused to agree that he had “significantly misled any reader” of the FRA as to his qualifications, adding: “I didn’t understand the use of post-nominals, sorry.”
The sample FRA provided to KCTMO also described Mr Stokes as having three years’ experience as “an independent fire risk assessor” – despite the fact that he had only 11 months’ experience at this time.
He initially denied having exaggerated his experience, but then agreed with Mr Millett that this wording had “the potential to mislead clients”.
Later in the day, the inquiry heard that Mr Stokes would cut and paste chunks of text when updating FRAs for KCTMO, only changing sections if he received new information.
In his expert report, Mr Todd called this “poor or inappropriate practice”.
Mr Stokes argued: “If nothing has changed, you could change some words in it, but it’s still the same.”
Despite Mr Stokes claiming that he would “try not to” cut and paste text between FRAs for different buildings, the inquiry was shown a paragraph from an assessment of Grenfell Tower carried out by Mr Stokes in April 2016 discussing pigeon netting and flat balconies.
Neither pigeon netting nor flat balconies were a feature of Grenfell Tower, but this section appeared in three different FRAs for the building by Mr Stokes.
Mr Stokes is no longer working as a fire risk assessor, having stopped in May 2018 after his insurer refused to renew his policy.
The inquiry continues.
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