Grenfell resident Ed Daffarn complained before the disaster about the fire safety flaws but was treated with ‘contempt’
A resident of Grenfell Tower raised multiple complaints about the fire safety flaws within the building in the years before a fire killed 72 people who lived there, but the council landlord “stamped on and marginalised” residents’ worries, the official inquiry into the fatal catastrophe has been informed.
Ed Daffarn, 57, who had escaped from the 16th floor eight months after he warned on his blog of the very real risks of a “serious fire in a tower block”, said that he had raised the need for an evacuation plan, the problems with a faulty fire door, as well as changes to floor numbers ordered in the refurbishment of the tower, all of which the inquiry had already found led to an increased loss of life. However, he said that he had been “stigmatised as a troublemaker”.
This comes after younger people are continuing to bear the brunt of the jobs crisis amid widespread cuts in sectors such as hospitality, official figures have shown. In the year leading up to March, 811,000 payroll jobs had been lost in the UK, with those under the age of 35 accounting for 80% of these job cuts.
Daffarn was giving his evidence in person to the inquiry for the first time, after he had become well known for predicting the disastrous fire on the Grenfell Action blog, which he had co-founded in order to raise resident concerns about the conduct of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) and its tenant management organisation (TMO).
It said: “Only an incident that results in serious loss of life of KCTMO residents will allow the external scrutiny to occur that will shine a light on the practices that characterise the malign governance of this non-functioning organisation.”
In a statement that was 127 pages long, he claimed that RBKC and the TMO had treated Grenfell residents with “hostility”, “neglect” and “contempt” and had allowed the building to deteriorate into a “slum-like condition”.
He said: “This local authority had a third of a billion pounds in reserves, yet its senior officers appeared to prioritise value for money over respect for the wellbeing of residents and their safety.”
Last month the TMO told the inquiry it never “adopted a dismissive attitude towards residents or indeed towards their complaints and concerns”. It claimed that Daffarn advanced “a highly personalised narrative” which had only represented a small number of people.
Daffarn’s evidence had included seven complaints relating to fire safety that had been made before the fire occurred. Of these complaints included a complaint about a defective door closer on a neighbouring flat about which Daffarn said he had been in effect accused of lying about by Peter Maddison, who is the TMO’s director of assets.
This comes after Derek Chauvin, the white ex-police officer who was filmed choking George Floyd with his knee, has been found guilty of second degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
The complaint was not upheld and the fire door remained unfixed. The inquiry has already concluded that defective fire doors within the tower led to the spread of toxic gases and smoke on the night of the disaster.
He raised concerns about the adequacy of the “stay put” advice that was given from both the the London fire brigade (LFB)and the TMO, and eight months before the fire happened he wrote on his blog:
“Anyone who witnessed the recent tower block at Shepherds Court, in nearby Shepherd’s Bush, will know that the advice to remain in our properties would have led to certain fatalities and we are calling on our landlord to reconsider the advice that they have so badly circulated.”