A few weeks earlier, one of the phase 2 panelists had stepped down and Prime Minister Boris Johnson (who had succeeded May in July 2019) appointed Benita Mehra to fill the post.

Lawyers for Rydon introduced emails that showed that Celotex knew that their combustible insulation product was not safe to use with ACM panels as a suitable fire barrier was not available.

[14] The combustible cladding panels made by Arconic, which contained the flammable polyethylene core, were chosen as part of an attempt to cut £454,000 from the budget by KCTMO.

[15] After the companies' opening statements were read, Richard Millett criticised them for failing to admit any mistakes: "With the sole exception of RBKC, not a single core participant involved in the primary refurbishment of Grenfell Tower has felt able to make any unqualified admission against its own interests."

"[16] Millett added: "Any member of the public reading these statements and taking them all at face value would be forced to conclude that everyone involved in the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower did what they were supposed to do and nobody made any serious causative mistakes.

[20] However the suspension dragged on with the Attorney General wishing to ascertain how many witnesses would demanding immunity, and the chairman pointed out this was of the greatest urgency as a health and safety issue affect hundreds of lives.

The attorney general had given the assurance, and Moore-Bick explained that the undertaking meant that “no one will be able to justify refusing to answer questions on the grounds that to do so would or might expose him or herself personally to a risk of prosecution”.

In Crawford's opinion, Celotex had actively tried to deceive by saying, in an architect's information sheet, that the material was “acceptable for use in buildings above 18m in height” whereas in fact that statement actually referred to a different product.

[27] The inquiry heard claims that during the planning process Simon Lawrence, a key executive of Rydon, failed to respond to concerns that the cladding might be dangerous and that it could lead to a repeat of the Lakanal House tower fire in south London in 2009 which caused the death of six people.

[30] Chris Holt, Rydon's site manager attested: “I was aware that as the refurbishment was to a residential block of flats, one of the main risk factors would be fire safety.

[31] David Gibson, head of capital investment from KCTMO [landlord] recalls making a spelling correction to the minutes on a meeting with Rydon in early 2015.

There were discussions on the optimum fixing system, KCTMO held out for the more expensive "cassette-fix" which gave a smoother finish while Lawrence tried to persuade them to save £75,000 by using the 'face-fix' method.

[56] On 16 November, Jonathan Roper, a former assistant product manager for Celotex, who worked on two fire tests of the foam panels and the subsequent sales plans, said the company behaved in a “completely unethical” way.

[57] A senior technician, Ivor Meredith, responsible for safety tests on combustible insulation used on Grenfell Tower, had “a serious drug habit” and fell asleep at work.

[58] On 30 November 2020, the inquiry learned that Kingspan director Philip Heath had said, in 2008, that consultants who raised concerns about the combustibility of its product could "go f*ck themselves", and that they were "getting me confused with someone who gives a dam [sic]".

The campaign involved secretly using non-standard test rigs to artificially create the appearance that non-flammable rival products might in fact be flammable, and hiring lobbyists to push the results before policymakers such as the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee and other MPs.

He had not seen, or known about the email circulating in France from Alain Flacon in May 2016 instructing all employees not to sell it, and to ask their managers for the information needed to persuade clients to change the specifications of existing orders.

Furthermore, Wehrle had emailed colleagues that “PE is DANGEROUS on facades, and everything should be transferred to FR [fire retardant] as a matter of urgency.”[82] The inquiry continued on 10 March 2021, with three empty chairs.

Wehrle, who refused to participate, had shared technical reports from 2015 about 10 high-rise fires in different parts of the world using similar cladding panels, warning of the risks.

Long live FR :-)” [83] With Wehrle and Sontag raising these issues, why hadn't Arconic withdrawn the product - and what had senior management done about these warnings, asked Millet.

Laura Johnson, RBKC director of housing, took no action other than to forward the letter to the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO) marked ("FYI").

The professional competence of one of the key independent expert witnesses, Colin Todd, was questioned when he endorsed the unregistered Carl Stokes, KCTMO's fire safety engineer.

Survivors claim council knowingly housed people with disabilities on some of tower’s highest floors, and did not discuss an individualised fire rescue plan with them as they were obliged to do.

[87] It was confirmed on 6 May by Teresa Brown, the director of housing at the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation at the time, that the council had relied on its stay put-policy and that individualised evacuation plans had not been thought necessary and were not available and had not been produced.

Rock Feilding-Mellen, (deputy-leader) the councillor in charge of the Grenfell Tower refurbishment, was informed of plans to save money by swapping zinc cladding for aluminium in 2014 but told police he only knew about it after the June 2017 fire.

[89] Nicholas Paget-Brown (leader) had not verified whether the TMO executives, whom he thought of as housing professionals with appropriate CVs, knew enough about cladding a high rise to be able to hold their contractors to account.

I don’t think we addressed the emotional side and I think we lacked a little humanity … We could have done better.”[91] Rita Dexter, the deputy commissioner of the London fire brigade, told Paget-Brown in 2015 of “a serious risk to the safety of residents” caused by the refurbishment.

Robert Black told the inquiry that “Information should have been updated by staff,” “The whole thing that I suffered throughout my career working with people is the ability to forget to fill in the paperwork.” The paperwork said there were 12 that needed individual rescue plans, when actually there were 35.

[93] Black made a decision not to act to fulfil the landlord obligation to should draw up these specific emergency evacuation plans for vulnerable and disabled people anywhere, claiming it was impractical.

[93] Black instructed his colleague Barbara Matthews to do nothing, when Ed Daffarn had posted on a blog in November 2016 the prediction that: “Only an incident that results in serious loss of life ... will shine a light on the practices that characterise the malign governance of this non-functioning organisation.”.