Grenfell handprints destroyed despite government promise to families

Campaigners' hopes that stairwell wall had been saved for memorial are dashed after news that it has been wrecked

- John Simpson Home Affairs Editor

Handprints in the soot on the walls of Grenfell Tower have been destroyed, despite promises to families that they would be preserved for a memorial, a representative for some of the bereaved has told The Observer.

The small prints were on the charred stairwell where at least eight residents of the west London tower block died in the June 2017 fire, becoming a focus of grief for some families of the deceased.

Writing for The Observer last month, Kimia Zabihyan, who represents a group whose family members were among the 72 killed in the fire, argued that the government had vowed to preserve the prints on the wall between floors 12 and 14, but their destruction was imminent, as the tower was being brought down floor by floor.

After a report in this paper drawing attention to the Grenfell Next of Kin campaign group's proposed legal action, the demolition of the tower was paused. The group believed the handprints had been saved.

Now it has emerged they have already been irreparably damaged - their destruction had possibly occurred prior to the decision to pause the demolition but was not mentioned at the time.