Grenfell Inquiry day 61: council’s management organisation slammed for faulty electrics

Describing the events on the night of the fire Mr Wahbi said that he initially heard a cracking sound coming from a window in his apartment which led him to open it. Once opened a large amount of smoke entered his apartment.

He said: “When I came to the kitchen there was no smoke at all. I opened the window, and when I came back to the kitchen what I saw from my window was something very very strange.”

Mr Wahbi said that when he moved to his window “the smoke and the fire was just following me and was something very, very strange. At that time everything went black, so most of the smoke, which came into the lobby came out of my flat first.”

Mr Wahbi made his way down one floor to check if the fire had been coming from the floors above before briefly returning to his flat. At one point Mr Wahbi described how he saw a firefighter who was in difficulty on the stairwell.

Asked about the events that occurred once he decided to make his escape, Mr Wahbi said that he had made the decision to run “as much as I could” from the 16th to the 15th floor and met

“different firefighters and people struggling to get in or to get out of their flats”.

“I just made quick speed to go right to the ground floor,” he added.

“Once I got out of the tower I took my way to the sports centre, tried to help as much as I can, I stood looking at the tower. I thought the firefighters would bring the fire under control but I just stood there in shock.”

The second witness to give evidence to the inquiry, Dr Naomi Li, told how the windows in her flat on the 22nd floor of the tower had been a constant problem since refurbishment work had taken place.

Giving evidence in the afternoon session Dr Li said: “It became a big problem when it became cold one night when it became clear that it was not just the sides but there was an actual gap between the wall and the window frame.

“You realised that [the windows] didn’t do the job properly. [The installers] didn’t bother to do the job properly.”

She added that someone from Rydon said they would come to fix the problems, “but they never did”, and the gaps in the windows were still in place on the night of the fire.

Dr Li said that she had read up on fire safety prior to the fire, and added that “her understanding” on what to do in case of a fire was to close all windows and doors and wait to be rescued.

Dr Li moved into the tower in 2011 and lived there with her husband Lee Chapman, who was not present on the night of the fire, and her cousin Lydia Chin-Hsuan Liao in flat 195.

Dr Li and her cousin sought refuge in flat 193 on the night of the fire following her first call to 999.

She had called 999 at around 1:21am and been told to stay in her apartment.

There was very light smoke at the time. However her neighbour told her that the fire was “in her kitchen”.

Dr Li said: “I just thought, ‘If the fire is in their kitchen, that is just too close to us’. I remember thinking whether the 999 call actually misunderstood my question or gave me wrong advice.

“If it was in Mariem’s flat, which is literally next to us, there was only one wall between us. I thought that was too risky and we had to leave.”

Dr Li warned her neighbours before leaving.

Making her way down the tower Dr Li described how on descending the stairwell she became aware that she was stepping over bodies.

“At the beginning of the journey down, it was very quick, we were running grabbing onto the rail, I was constantly calling Lydia’s name. After about four or five floors I started to feel like I was stepping on something. At first I thought it was jackets or wet towels.

“At one point I knew it was bodies but tried not to think about it and just keep running or walking down I cannot remember how many of them I might have stepped on. Whenever I stepped on something I told Lydia be careful there’s something on the floor. At one point she fell over and realised it was a person and screamed; I said, ‘We need to keep going.’”