Grenfell made a death trap by dishonesty and failure

Damning verdict on building firms and architects who ignored fire safety leaves way clear for criminal cases

- Tristan Kirk and Nicholas Cecil

GRENFELL Tower was turned into a death trap by "dishonest" construction firms, architects and negligent politicians who ignored fire safety for decades, a public inquiry has found, paving the way for criminal prosecutions over the disaster.

Seventy-two Grenfell residents lost their lives when fire engulfed the west London tower block on June 14, 2017, in one of the worst disasters in modern British history.

A public inquiry stretched across seven years has exposed how a refurbishment of Grenfell prior to the fire left the block coated in cheap and highly flammable materials while warnings of an impending disaster from those who lived there were ignored.

In an utterly damning report, inquiry chair Sir Martin Moore-Bick has now concluded that architects, companies involving in the disastrous refubishment, and the local council in Kensington and Chelsea are to blame for fatal fire. Cost-cutting on the refurbshment was prioritised over safety, while the warning signs of previous tower block fires had been routinely ignored.

And he found the "enthusiastic" pursuit of deregulation under David Cameron's government had trumped the need for fire safety controls across the construction industry.

The Metropolitan Police has now promised to pick over Sir Martin's report as a team of nearly 200 officers pursue criminal prosecutions.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy, right, said: "We will be thorough and diligent in our investigation while moving as swiftly as possible. We I owe that to those who died."

"The fire at Grenfell Tower was the culmination of decades of failure by central government and other bodies in positions of responsibility in the contruction industry to look carefully into the danger of incorporating combustible materials into the external walls of high-rise residential buildings and to act on the information available to them," said Sir Martin.