No Justice
THE SURVIVORS and bereaved families of the Grenfell Tower fire
disaster are in shock and very angry. They know this tragedy was preventable
and that residents had warned the landlord and Kensington and Chelsea council
over and over again that the place was a dangerous fire hazard – and were told
to stop being a nuisance. Now they know that the insulation cladding around
that building was very flammable – even though there has been a law in London
against using flammable materials in house construction passed in 1666 after
the great fire of London.
Health and safety regulations have been
weakened by the Tory government “war on red tape” but even so what remains of
health and safety laws have been broken – by builders, planners, council
officials – by people.
The council also totally failed to use its
emergency reserves to provide help and support for the survivors – many of whom
were left traumatised in just the night clothes they had on as they escaped
from the inferno. The aid and support these people received came from local
residents and shopkeepers, a mosque and various charities. The council went
into hiding and refused to speak to an increasingly angry public.
Police last week said they believe that
they have enough evidence to bring a case of corporate manslaughter against
those who are guilty. But the Corporate Manslaughter Act of 2007 allows a
corporation to be sued but no individuals in that corporation can be singled
out for charges. If found guilty, the corporation gets fined but no one goes to
jail. And the fines would be taken out of the coffers of the London Borough of
Kensington and Chelsea. And guess who would suffer most from this cut in the
council’s budget – the people needing support services from the council,
including the surviving victims!
An inquiry is under-way, quickly set in
place by Theresa May’s government, with an extremely narrow remit to
investigate only what happened on the night – but even this may have to be
suspended if court cases are brought.
The victims need and deserve justice – it
is hard to recover from a crime like this whilst the criminals are still in
office and still mainly looking after themselves. They need the guilty people
to be in court and in jail. They need genuine remorse from the guilty. But
everything in our justice system is rigged to prevent this happening.
The total number of dead is still a
mystery, but since the tragedy 20 survivors have attempted suicide and four of
them tragically succeeded. This crime is continuing to kill people.
This is not the first time that the
British justice system has failed the victims of crime; 51 years ago in the
mining village of Aberfan, 116 children and 28 adults died when an unstable
colliery slag heap slid down a hill and engulfed the Pantglas Junior School.
The slag heap was unstable because it was
sited on top of two natural springs – well known and marked on maps. The locals
knew it was dangerous and said so but the National Coal Board (NCB), headed by
Lord Robens, insisted on continuing to pile mountains of waste on this insecure
base.
The disaster wiped out a generation of
children from that small village. The lives of the bereaved families were
devastated.
And there was the same anger that the
people of Grenfell Tower are feeling now. There were inquiries, inquests and
campaigns, and bit by bit over the last 50 years the NCB, which no longer
exists, was forced to admit that the disaster was not down to natural causes.
We now know exactly what happened but no
case was ever brought to court and no guilty person was ever charged.
And there are so many other instances:
Hillsborough, the truth is finally out and the guilty have been named but they
are not yet in jail. There have been thousands of unnecessary deaths in
custody, especially of young black men; again the campaigns with varying
degrees of success in finding the truth but still not one police officer in
jail.
The British state guards its officers and
agents well. They get away literally with murder and are never brought to
account. And it is anger at this burning injustice that will, sooner or later,
play a big role in bringing down that state.
