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Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 18: ‘It was just reckless optimism, wasn’t it?’

Insight13.11.205.30 PM by Nathaniel Barker

As the inquiry began cross-examining witnesses for the second module of its phase two work, the picture surrounding just how Grenfell Tower ended up wrapped in such dangerous materials became a little clearer. Nathaniel Barker was keeping an eye on proceedings

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The second module of phase two of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry began at the back end of last week with opening statements from lawyers representing the groups involved. It did not take long for some shocking revelations to emerge – detailed here.

This week, the inquiry began taking evidence for this module in earnest. In a crowded field, it relates to one of the most important aspects of the panel’s work: examining the actions over many years of the companies that sold the highly combustible materials installed on the facade of Grenfell Tower.

Of particular interest was the evidence given by insulation manufacturer Celotex, which has already been identified since the fire as deploying tactics aimed at ensuring its products passed safety tests.

Here is what we learned.

Celotex manager told to ‘lie for commercial gain’ over safety test of insulation sold for use on Grenfell

Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 15: ‘Have you ever informed the police that you destroyed documents relevant to their investigation?’

Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 16: ‘I conclude this was very serious evidence of professional negligence’

Grenfell Tower Inquiry diary week 17: ‘It’s hard to make a note about this because we are not clean’

‘We are in the know’

Picture: Ian Abley

Before we turn to Celotex, Monday saw the last of the opening statements for this module with yet more astonishing disclosures. Lawyers for the bereaved, survivors and Grenfell community residents, as well as refurbishment main contractor Rydon, took aim at the manufacturers.

Particularly eye-catching was the citation of a series of internal emails from Arconic, which produced the Reynobond panels used on Grenfell. These panels were found to be the biggest reason for the spread of fire at Grenfell.

The emails showed that as early as 2009, senior staff at the multinational firm were aware of how “dangerous” polyethylene (PE) cladding could be. In fact, while the panels were being installed on Grenfell Tower in summer 2015, Claude Wehrle, head of technical sales support at Arconic, was telling colleagues that the material “is DANGEROUS on facades”, adding that “everything should be transferred to FR [fire resistant] as a matter of urgency”.

Six months later, Mr Wehrle would comment following a fire close to a Reynobond PE-clad tower: “We are in the ‘know’, and I think it is up to us to be proactive… AT LAST.”

At the same time, the emails appear to show Arconic was working hard to keep what it knew quiet. For instance, Mr Wehrle told colleagues that the fact the cassette-shaped Reynobond PE panels – which were fitted at Grenfell – did not achieve the Euroclass B fire safety standard they were certified for had to be kept “VERY CONFIDENTIAL!!!!!”. Perhaps more disturbing still, in other emails he mentioned “arranging” cladding systems to pass tests and “a gap in the certification that we continue to make use of”.

Sam Stein QC, representing victims of the fire, branded Arconic – as well as Celotex and Kingspan – “little more than crooks and killers”.

Giving its opening statement last week, Arconic said the product had been “misused” in a way that was “entirely peculiar to Grenfell” and “could not have been predicted”. It said that the design involved “numerous departures from building regulations” and that the product was “capable of being used safely if adequate safety measures are designed”.

Three witnesses based in France – including Mr Wehrle – are currently refusing to attend the UK to give evidence to the inquiry due to a French law that prohibits disclosures to foreign courts. Survivors have called on the Foreign Office to work with the French government to achieve a resolution.

The Celotex story

Jonathan Roome giving evidence (picture: Grenfell Tower Inquiry)

One of the central secrets at the heart of the Grenfell Tower story surrounds insulation manufacturer Celotex. In 2018 it emerged that the company placed fire-resistant boards between temperature monitors during a May 2014 safety test of its RS5000 product – now withdrawn – despite these not being shown on drawings in the test report. The upshot of that falsely passed test was that RS5000 began being marketed for use on high rises that summer – and was later found in the inquiry’s phase one report to have “more likely than not” helped fire to spread up Grenfell Tower. This week saw cross-examination of two former Celotex employees, who began to explain the circumstances surrounding that test and the selection of RS5000 for Grenfell.

We picked up the narrative in its later chapters. Wednesday saw Jonathan Roome, who was in Celotex’s sales team at the time of RS5000’s launch and the Grenfell refurbishment, take to the witness stand. He agreed multiple times over a day and a half of evidence that marketing material describing RS5000 as “acceptable for use in buildings above 18m in height” was “misleading”, because it did not include the important caveat that this was true only when the product was used as part of the same cladding system tested in May 2014. The impression conveyed to the inquiry by Mr Roome’s early evidence was that he himself was among those misled; he said of test data that staff in his team “were only shown what we were allowed to be shown”.

He became aware of the truth about the May 2014 test only “a couple of years ago” during a meeting with Celotex lawyers, he told the inquiry. It also emerged that he did not realise that RS5000 was simply a rebrand of an existing Celotex product, FR5000.

But as the questioning went on, whether Mr Roome was as in the dark as he let on became unclear. Lead counsel to the inquiry Richard Millett was at times noticeably frustrated by the witness’ professions of ignorance and inability to remember what was going through his mind at the time.

That was particularly true when it came to giving evidence about his dealings with the Grenfell cladding sub-contractor, Harley Facades. Mr Roome admitted that he never attempted to make sure that Harley’s Daniel Anketell-Jones was aware of the very important caveat that RS5000 could be used on a high rise only as part of the exact system in which it was tested, saying that he thought he could leave it to the “specialist”.

Even when discussing using a 150 or 160mm-thick board of the product – which, per the caveat, could be compliant only at 100mm – Mr Roome claimed it did not occur to him at the time that this could pose an issue.

“I have to put to you,” Mr Millett said in clipped syllables, “that that is not a credible line of thinking, and that you can’t have thought that at the time.”

Of relevance here is a slideshow created by Mr Roome and shown to the inquiry earlier, which put potential buyers into three “tiers”, ranging from tier three, “No Use”, who were “not happy with current test data on combustible insulation products”, to green colour-coded tier one, who were “Not aware of 18m restriction”.

On Thursday afternoon we said goodbye to Mr Roome, as he was replaced in the witness stand by Jonathan Roper, former product manager at Celotex. Mr Roper was tasked with leading on the launch of RS5000 and passed much of the “misleading” marketing literature on the product to Mr Roome, so it was a surprise to see someone so fresh-faced appear before Mr Millett.

The inquiry heard that Mr Roper was just 23 when given responsibility for RS5000 in 2013. It was a big job, tied to key targets set by Celotex’s new owner, Saint Gobain, and Mr Roper told the panel: “I was concerned that I knew very little of that marketplace.”

He knew this much: that the key aim was to get RS5000 cleared for use in rainscreen (hence ‘RS’) cladding systems on buildings taller than 18m in order to compete with rival firm Kingspan, to which Celotex was losing significant business.

“It seemed inconceivable that the main competition were carrying out test after test,” Mr Roper explained. He contacted the Building Research Establishment (BRE) to ask how Kingspan was apparently able to sell its product for use in cladding systems that varied from those tested. An email back-and-forth with BRE engineers ended “without any answers”, Mr Roper said.

Nevertheless, Mr Roper went ahead and said in a November 2013 email to Simco, a sub-contractor designing the test rig for Celotex: “As much as they [BRE] limit the scope of the tested system, they do accept that although one system was tested… they understand that commonly this allows insulation products to be used with a variety of systems in practice.”

Asked if that really reflected advice he had received from BRE, Mr Roper replied: “Looking at it now, no.”

His email went on to say that carrying out the test with a non-combustible fibre cement cladding panel product “shouldn’t cause us any issues” with using the RS5000 product behind Reynobond – the type of combustible panel with which it was paired at Grenfell – on other projects. That, posited Mr Millett, “was just reckless optimism wasn’t it, given what you knew?”

“In hindsight, yes,” Mr Roper responded.

So now we know what was happening at Celotex that led it to seek a test pass for RS5000, and what occurred after the product was launched to cause it to end up on Grenfell Tower. What is still missing is the detail of the testing process itself. Mr Roper – as well as his former Celotex colleagues – will be back to give evidence next week when he will doubtless be probed about this episode.

Questions over testing regime

Tuesday saw the inquiry’s formidable fire engineering expert Dr Barbara Lane deliver a highly technical presentation on the testing regimes that cleared the Grenfell Tower products for market use.

Dr Lane raised numerous questions, particularly relating to the BS 8414 test used to assess the fire safety credentials of whole cladding systems – and the test referred to in the previous section on Celotex.

She said the tests relied on data from the first 15 minutes after a fire is lit in the crib at the bottom of the rig – suggesting that this timeframe “may be before peak temperatures are measured for relevant cladding materials”.

Elsewhere, she noted that it was possible for a cladding system being tested using BS 8414 to collapse but still not fail.

For context, BS 8414 tests were used to establish the safety of common cladding systems in the months after Grenfell and the results still form the bedrock of the government’s Building Safety Programme. However, the test has been subject to significant criticism since the fire.

In rather loaded closing comments, Dr Lane remarked: “It would be of considerable interest to hear the perspective from those that created and monitored the reaction to fire test standards in this country… and how relevant they consider them to be to the fire performance of external walls.”

All that will come later in the evidence for this module.

‘Participate in the process of change’

The comments made by Mr Stein, acting on behalf of one of the bereaved, survivors and residents groups, towards the end of his opening statement are also worth taking notice of. He implored inquiry chair Sir Martin Moore-Bick and his panel to “participate in the process of change”.

Essentially, he was calling for the inquiry to either report more regularly on its findings or for Sir Martin to make a point of writing to government sharing his opinion on the issues covered. As it stands, the inquiry is not set to report again until the end of phase two – meaning 2023, in all probability.

Mr Stein drew comparisons with the Child Sexual Abuse Inquiry and Infected Blood Inquiry, which report or make recommendations much more frequently.

“Where has been the voice of the inquiry in promoting change?” he demanded in reference to the agonisingly slow pace of remediating dangerous cladding. “How much more could have been done if the inquiry were involved?”

There is, Mr Stein asserted, a “real danger” that survivors “will be let down by this inquiry if it doesn’t participate in the process of change”. Whether Sir Martin heeds these words remains to be seen.

What to keep an eye on

Issues that have only been touched on so far but are likely to become major over the coming weeks of the inquiry are the roles of certification body the British Board of Agrément and testing house BRE.

Adrian Williamson QC, speaking on Monday on behalf of those directly affected by the fire, claimed that these organisations “knew they were being played” by the manufacturers. Consider also Dr Lane’s above-mentioned interest in hearing from those that designed the testing regime. Intriguingly, both Mr Stein and Celotex’s Mr Roper accused BRE of abdicating responsibility for the tests carried out under its nose.

But delivering her opening statement on behalf of BRE, Samantha Leek QC reported the body’s “dismay” at learning that it had been fed misleading information by Celotex and Kingspan and insisted it had “no involvement in the testing or classification of the cladding systems installed on Grenfell Tower before the tragic fire”.

Working out just how much the BRE knew and was responsible for will be one of the key challenges for this stage of the inquiry.

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