Grenfell Inquiry should have run ‘in parallel’ with criminal probe, says Michael Mansfield KC

The criminal investigation into the Grenfell Tower disaster should have been run in parallel with the public inquiry, a renowned barrister who represents bereaved families said today.

Michael Mansfield KC was speaking to the Gazette after the Crown Prosecution Service said it was unlikely to launch any prosecutions until late 2026 at the earliest, after the Metropolitan Police would not pass it the file until 2026. 

The barrister - who represented families affected by the fire - declined to say whether he thought any prosecution was likely or whether there should be one. However, he said: ‘I do have a strong view that this should never have happened in this way.

'Given the gravity of the situation, it is really serious issues which cannot be determined by the inquiry, then I think there was an argument for the inquiry being set up and to begin its work, but where it gets to troubled water, the inquiry defers to the prosecution.

'I do not think an inquiry should be used as a trial and error to see how it would go if we prosecute,' Mansfield added. 

He pointed to the example of the investigations into the Herald of Free Enterprise, a roll-on/roll-off ferry which capsized moments after leaving the Belgian port of Zeebrugge on the night of March 6 1987, killing 193 passengers and crew.

An inquest was held with a jury into the disaster in October 1987, the same year as a public Court of Inquiry into the incident was held. By 1990, seven defendants and P&O European Ferries (Dover) Ltd., owners of the ferry, had appeared on trial, charged with manslaughter, though the case collapsed.

Mansfield pointed out that the public inquiry and the criminal investigations in the Herald of Free Enterprise case ‘were running in parallel’ and said the Grenfell case should have proceeded in a similar way. ‘When you have got something as serious as this, you have to get on with the business of investigating and prosecuting as soon as you can. You do not put one off for the other’, he added.

Mansfield pointed out that a number of the interested parties in the Grenfell inquiry had asked for undertakings from the attorney general before giving evidence that they would not be prosecuted on the basis of what they said at the hearings.   

‘It seem to me that, in any event, that does not preclude a prosecution on the evidence of other people, even if they cannot be prosecuted on what they actually said at the inquiry’, the veteran silk added. ‘I do not know of any legislation that prohibits one going ahead of the other. As far as I know, they can do that.

‘It has already taken too long and there should have been a situation in which they at least were ready to proceed as soon as the inquiry was over. The inquiry has not sat for a couple of years. That was plenty of time to consider this.’

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