Police to spend a year building Grenfell Tower replica

Telegraph

07-05-2025

Police are planning to spend more than a year building a full-scale replica of part of Grenfell Tower to secure criminal convictions, The Telegraph can disclose.
Scotland Yard has told grieving relatives that the model would be used to help explain to juries how the fire spread in any future trials.
But the length of time to get to trial has left families distraught and questioning whether an inquiry this complex was ever suited to a traditional police force.
Grieving relatives told The Telegraph they feared they would now never 'see justice' over the botched refurbishment of the west London high-rise tower block that led to the most devastating fire in the post-war era.
A spokesman for Grenfell Next of Kin, which represents the close families of about half the deceased, said: 'The trust is broken in the Met Police and the systems. Now they want to build a tower and on and on it goes.'
In a letter to victims' families and survivors leaked to The Telegraph, the police chief in charge of the investigation said it was 'essential' that any replica was 'built to detailed specification and full-scale to help juries understand the case'.
The replica would be too large for any courtroom and would have to be constructed inside a warehouse, with juries taken to view it.
Det Supt Garry Moncrieff, the senior investigating officer, said no final decision had been taken to go ahead with the reconstruction, but recognising the sensitivities, police wanted to let families know of their plan first.
'Complex investigation'
In the letter seen by The Telegraph, Det Supt Moncrieff said that the number of investigators now working on the Grenfell Tower criminal inquiry was being increased to 180 at a cost of almost £24 million this year alone. The final police cost is likely to far exceed £100 million.
The senior investigating officer also disclosed that the force was a little over halfway through sending preliminary reports to prosecutors - some eight years after the blaze in which 72 people were killed.
The preliminary reports so far submitted to prosecutors total more than a million words with 'many thousands of statements, documents and exhibits' provided as backup evidence.
Police are planning to submit files on 20 separate organisations or companies, and the individual suspects connected to them, by the end of September 2026 – more than nine years after the fire in June 2017.
It is unclear how many trials that would entail if all 20 files led to charges. But the prospect of court cases stretching into the 2030s no longer seems fanciful.
In his letter to the bereaved, survivors and residents, Det Supt Moncreiff wrote: 'As you more than anyone understand, this investigation has taken so long primarily because it is so complex. If there are future criminal trials, then those trials will take place before juries.
'The police, CPS, and our team of experts have spent a lot of time thinking about how we could best help those jurors understand really complicated evidence and technical topics.
'Part of my role is to work with the CPS, lawyers and experts to consider how best to present complex evidence to a jury, recognising that Grenfell Tower may no longer be there at the time of a trial.
'In addition to our photographs, video recordings and 3D scans, we are exploring the possibility of building a replica of a small section of the outside of Grenfell Tower. This would enable us to show juries exactly what Grenfell Tower looked like when it was built and after it was refurbished. If we do build such a replica, I consider it essential that it is built to detailed specification and full-scale to help juries understand the case.'
He added: 'It is important you are told first, even though the final decision to build the replica has not yet been reached.
'To build a replica this complex, to the accuracy required for a criminal case, will take over a year. If the CPS do take decisions to charge individuals, companies and/ or organisations, then it is important that we do not create any avoidable delays.'
He said that if the replica was given the go-ahead, it 'will be built in a secure and private environment, in a way that will help future juries to understand the case. It is our intention that you would have the opportunity to visit it before any court cases take place'.
He said it remained 'one of the MPS's [Metropolitan Police Service's] highest priorities', adding that 'as a result, the number of investigators working on the case has now risen to 180' from 160 in an attempt to stick to his deadline of submitting a full file of evidence by the end of September next year.
He said the extra staff increased police costs to £23.8 million for the financial year April 2025 to March 2026. The Home Office is contributing £9.3 million.
In his letter, Det Supt Moncrieff said 12 Early Investigative Advice [EIA] files would be submitted to the CPS by the end of last month, out of 20 being planned.
'The size of each file is significant,' he said, 'The covering reports of those first 12 EIA files alone, written by the police investigators, contain over a million words and are supported by many thousands of statements, documents and exhibits. The CPS and their team of lawyers will still need to see all of the final evidence brought together in order to reach charging decisions.'
Some families have lost faith in the criminal justice system. Any charges have been hugely delayed by the public inquiry, put in place by the then-prime minister, Baroness May, in the immediate aftermath of the Grenfell fire, which took precedence and ran for seven years before publishing its final report in September last year.
In a statement, Grenfell Next of Kin said: 'After nearly eight years, the immediate families of the deceased have encountered betrayal at every turn and a sense of exploitation regarding the loss of their loved ones, not justice. We need a more efficient justice system.
'Despite countless words spoken and hundreds of millions of pounds spent, and the immeasurable harm inflicted on the next of kin of those who died, what we have learned is that our justice system is fundamentally flawed. This investigation has clearly overwhelmed the Met Police.'
Maria Jaffari, who survived the blaze but whose 82-year-old father Ali died, said: 'Nearly eight years have passed and we still have no justice. We don't know how many years it's going to take and no one knows who's going to be alive for justice. Maybe not me, maybe not my mother.'
Karim Khalloufi, whose sister Khadija Khallouffi, 52, was killed, said: 'We need accountability and justice more quickly, not a list of excuses as to why they take so long. Maybe my mother will die before having justice for her child. Maybe I will die before seeing justice.'
A Met spokesman said: 'The Grenfell Tower fire is one of the most complex investigations ever undertaken by any UK law enforcement agency. The circumstances are highly unusual in that the criminal investigation and a public inquiry have been conducted at the same time, examining many of the same issues. Though both have examined the same tragedy, their purposes are different and are conducted to different legal standards.
'We cannot begin to imagine the impact that waiting for the outcome of our investigation must have on those who lost loved ones, those who survived, and all those affected by the tragedy. However, it is critical that we take great care to get this investigation right, and we have a dedicated team of 180 investigators, supported by leading experts, ensuring that we work as quickly as possible without compromising the quality of what we do.
'At the conclusion of our investigation, we will pass a file to the Crown Prosecution Service for charging decisions. That is an independent consideration for the CPS.
'However, we have recently explained to the bereaved, survivors and residents of Grenfell Tower that we are considering building a reconstruction of some elements of the building, to help future juries understand the evidence should charges be brought. That reconstruction will not impact upon the timescale of the police investigation.'