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Grenfell insulation employee annotated diagram of rigged test ‘what the f**k’
An employee of a company that supplied insulation for Grenfell Tower scrawled an acronym for “what the fuck” next to pictures of a fire safety test that had been altered to improve results, the inquiry has heard.
Debbie Berger, who became product manager at Celotex in 2014, recorded her shock at images of a rigged fire test with the acronym “WTF” when she was given handover notes from her predecessor.
Ms Berger was shown pictures of the BS8414 fire test for Celotex RS5000 that had been set up with extra fire-resisting magnesium boards to increase the chances of passing the test in 2014.
She said of the annotation: “It’s shorthand for shock. I was shocked that it had happened.”
Asked by lead counsel to the inquiry Richard Millet what was so shocking about the picture, Ms Berger said: “I didn’t think that Celotex would do this. I thought Celotex was a good company, I thought Celotex prided itself on doing the right thing on being honest.”
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Despite her surprise Ms Berger did not raise her concerns that details of the alterations to the rig were not included in marketing material for the RS5000 product.
“The whole topic of the 6mm and 8mm [fire-resisting boards] around the cavity receded from my mind, it really didn’t imprint itself. There was a lot of technical information that I was being shown at the time. I remember talking about this and there was a lot of technical information – some of it stuck, some of it didn’t.”
Ms Berger expressed her regret at not having had more time to work on the RS5000 product but pointed out that she was shown the images within the first few weeks of starting her new role.
Mr Millet put it to Ms Berger that it was Celotex’s intention to mislead sector bodies such as the Local Authority Building Control (LABC) about the nature of the test that RS5000 passed in 2014.
Ms Berger replied: “I think not being very open about those details from the start… I think, yes.”
She added: “There are people that knew about what was going on.”
The Celotex employee recalled her discomfort at wording that was eventually included in a certification document from the LABC which implied that RS5000 could be used safely on buildings taller than 18m, but said she felt it was too late to raise an issue with it.
“I think this was already in the market, it was already launched. It was something I inherited, it is something I probably didn’t feel I could change the direction of the product,” she told the inquiry.
The inquiry continues.
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