UK
Grenfell Tower firefighters win £20m damages in out-of-court settlementRobert Booth Social affairs correspondent
Thu, 1 February 2024
Some firefighters who tackled the blaze at Grenfell Tower in west London have been unable to work again due to severe trauma.
Photograph: Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty Images
Firefighters who attended the Grenfell Tower fire have secured up to £1.1m each in compensation after they sued construction companies, the landlord of the council block and the London fire commissioner.
Payouts to 114 firefighters will vary from £10,000 to £1.1m and total £20m. The out-of-court settlement follows a £150m payout last year in a similar civil claim brought by nearly 900 bereaved, survivors and residents of the disaster in west London that killed 72 people.
Lawyers for a smaller group of residents of the tower, senior fire officers and police officers are understood to be in negotiations.
Some of the firefighters were unable to work again because of severe trauma, and the claims were brought for personal injury and loss caused by alleged negligence and breach of statutory duty when they attended the blaze on 14 June 2017.
Vincent Reynolds, a lawyer at Thompsons Solicitors, which represented the firefighters through the Fire Brigades Union, said the blaze exposed them to “unimaginable scenes”.
“We hope this settlement brings closure of a sort for these firefighters, although we know that for many, the injuries will be for a lifetime,” he said.
If the case had gone to trial the firefighters were likely to have argued that the London fire brigade was partly responsible because of a lack of training and preparedness for high-rise fires and the way the stay-put policy, which instructed residents to remain in their flats, was handled.
Reynolds said the organisations that settled were Arconic, the US firm which made the combustible cladding; Celotex, the arm of the multinational company Saint Gobain which made the combustible insulation; Rydon, the main contractor, and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and its tenants management organisation. The companies have been approached for comment.
A spokesperson for the London fire brigade, which was part of the settlement, said: “We’re committed to doing all we can to make sure this tragedy is never repeated again and have been working hard to transform and improve our ways of working. Support remains available to those who attended the Grenfell Tower fire, and all our staff.”
The government is facing growing pressure to commit funding to the multimillion-pound Grenfell Tower memorial, with leading community members demanding “greater budgetary certainty”. Sandra Ruiz, a member of the Grenfell Tower Memorial Commission who lost her 12-year-old niece Jessica Urbano Ramirez in the fire, last week confronted government officials on the issue at the Grenfell Testimony Week event.
The government has estimated that the costs of looking after the Grenfell Tower site and funding the memorial will eventually reach £340m, but it remains unclear what the budget for the memorial and its upkeep will be.
“Promises are made quickly,” Ruiz said. “Action is slow to follow. And the pain of not having somewhere to remember grows, as does the feeling of injustice. Are we being delayed so that people forget?”
On Wednesday the commission, which is chaired by Paul Boateng, a Labour peer who is a former minister, and Thelma Stober, the solicitor and mediator, also issued a statement which said that issuing a design brief to architects for the memorial was not possible without “greater certainty around the budgetary framework and about what the commitments made by government will mean in practice”.
The Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities has been approached for comment.
Firefighters who attended the Grenfell Tower fire have secured up to £1.1m each in compensation after they sued construction companies, the landlord of the council block and the London fire commissioner.
Payouts to 114 firefighters will vary from £10,000 to £1.1m and total £20m. The out-of-court settlement follows a £150m payout last year in a similar civil claim brought by nearly 900 bereaved, survivors and residents of the disaster in west London that killed 72 people.
Lawyers for a smaller group of residents of the tower, senior fire officers and police officers are understood to be in negotiations.
Some of the firefighters were unable to work again because of severe trauma, and the claims were brought for personal injury and loss caused by alleged negligence and breach of statutory duty when they attended the blaze on 14 June 2017.
Vincent Reynolds, a lawyer at Thompsons Solicitors, which represented the firefighters through the Fire Brigades Union, said the blaze exposed them to “unimaginable scenes”.
“We hope this settlement brings closure of a sort for these firefighters, although we know that for many, the injuries will be for a lifetime,” he said.
If the case had gone to trial the firefighters were likely to have argued that the London fire brigade was partly responsible because of a lack of training and preparedness for high-rise fires and the way the stay-put policy, which instructed residents to remain in their flats, was handled.
Reynolds said the organisations that settled were Arconic, the US firm which made the combustible cladding; Celotex, the arm of the multinational company Saint Gobain which made the combustible insulation; Rydon, the main contractor, and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and its tenants management organisation. The companies have been approached for comment.
A spokesperson for the London fire brigade, which was part of the settlement, said: “We’re committed to doing all we can to make sure this tragedy is never repeated again and have been working hard to transform and improve our ways of working. Support remains available to those who attended the Grenfell Tower fire, and all our staff.”
The government is facing growing pressure to commit funding to the multimillion-pound Grenfell Tower memorial, with leading community members demanding “greater budgetary certainty”. Sandra Ruiz, a member of the Grenfell Tower Memorial Commission who lost her 12-year-old niece Jessica Urbano Ramirez in the fire, last week confronted government officials on the issue at the Grenfell Testimony Week event.
The government has estimated that the costs of looking after the Grenfell Tower site and funding the memorial will eventually reach £340m, but it remains unclear what the budget for the memorial and its upkeep will be.
“Promises are made quickly,” Ruiz said. “Action is slow to follow. And the pain of not having somewhere to remember grows, as does the feeling of injustice. Are we being delayed so that people forget?”
On Wednesday the commission, which is chaired by Paul Boateng, a Labour peer who is a former minister, and Thelma Stober, the solicitor and mediator, also issued a statement which said that issuing a design brief to architects for the memorial was not possible without “greater certainty around the budgetary framework and about what the commitments made by government will mean in practice”.
The Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities has been approached for comment.
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