Angry Grenfell survivors and residents berate London police and council officials
By
Robert Stevens
20 July 2017
For the second time in a week, anger erupted at a meeting called by Kensington and Chelsea Council and London’s Metropolitan Police.
A meeting Tuesday was held almost five weeks to the day of the June 14 Grenfell fire, with around 150 people gathered at the Notting Hill Methodist church in North Kensington.
The meeting was called by the “Grenfell Response Team,” established by the government and the local council following the fire.
Noticeable by her absence was council leader Elizabeth Campbell, who was denounced by residents last week over the role of the council in creating a death trap of Grenfell Tower and its inhumane treatment of the survivors and local residents in the aftermath.
Speaking on behalf of the Conservative-run council was Barry Quirk, the interim chief executive. There were no representatives from the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO)—the arms-length organisation that ran Grenfell Tower on behalf of the council.
Representing the Metropolitan Police was Detective Inspector Simon Fox, who is responsible for the recovery of bodies at the scene. Around a dozen uniformed police officers were dotted around the room creating an intimidating atmosphere.
The attempt by the authorities to try to placate anger by putting some fresh faces onto the platform did not work. Local resident Jacqui Haynes said, “Because of that, they can also get away by saying ‘Oh that wasn’t us, we weren’t there’ or ‘We are looking into what we do now’. What they’ve done is take away the people who are responsible so they don’t have to answer, and they just put in people who can’t answer, because they weren’t…