Grenfell police investigation to last until 2026

The Metropolitan Police has released an update on the progress of its criminal investigation regarding the Grenfell Tower fire, which is expected to continue until the end of 2026.

In a statement published on 22 May 2024, the Met confirmed that its investigation was being conducted by a dedicated team of 180 officers and staff who had followed up more than 27,000 separate lines of enquiry, taken more than 12,000 witness statements, and retrieved more than 152 million documents and files. It had also evaluated 1,600 witness statements provided to the Grenfell Tower Public Inquiry, including 300 days of evidence and over 320,000 documents.

Since the 2017 fire, detectives have identified and were in the process of investigating 19 companies or organisations and 58 individuals as suspects. Additionally, 50 suspects had already been interviewed “under caution”.

More than a year had been spent “forensically examining” Grenfell Tower, “painstakingly removing its exterior piece by piece.” A 635m2 warehouse was being used to store 27,000 exhibits, including cladding, insulation, doors, windows, and other parts of the building, down to screws, nuts, and bolts.

As part of their investigation, the Met added that detectives had entered an “early investigative advice” phase, submitting eight of 20 advice files to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The lengthy files each examine a “full range of offences including corporate manslaughter, gross negligence manslaughter, fraud, and health and safety offences”.

Rosemary Ainslie, head of the CPS Special Crime Division, said: “The police anticipate sending complete files of evidence to us by 2026. There is great benefit in this case that we have been working closely with police throughout and will therefore be in a strong position to consider the final evidential files when they have been completed.

However, as you will appreciate, due to the sheer volume of substantial evidence, there is still a lot of work to be done in reaching any charging decisions. It is our hope that by the end of 2026, we will be in a position where we are making decisions.

As you will appreciate it is not possible to provide any timescales on our charging decisions, so we will not be able to give a definitive date on when everything will be completed, but our team of specialist prosecutors will need time to review the final file carefully and thoroughly before making their decisions."

The update from the Met came just before the announcement that the Phase 2 report of the public Grenfell Inquiry would be published in September. You can view the FPA’s news report of this here.

At the time, the Met said the final report would be a “landmark moment for not only all those directly affected by the fire, but also for the police investigation”.

Our work is independent of the public inquiry, but detectives must fully consider the report’s findings in the context of the ongoing and highly complex criminal investigation,” the Met added.

It is understood that the investigation team will require at least 12-18 months to “fully assess the inquiry’s report” and complete evidential files to present to the CPS for charging decisions.

Stuart Cundy, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, said: “At the heart of the police investigation are the bereaved and survivors, who have gone through so much. I can’t pretend to imagine the impact of such a long police investigation on them.

Those who are most deeply affected have our commitment that we are doing all we can to get this investigation right. We owe that to those who died and all those affected by the tragedy. We are moving as quickly as we can, but we must be thorough and diligent in our investigation.

This is one of the largest and most complex investigations ever undertaken by the Met, the scale and legal complexity is immense. We have been working since the night of the fire to leave no stone unturned in our investigation into what happened.

Based on where we are today, we believe it will take us at least until the end of 2025 to fully assess the public inquiry’s phase 2 report and finalise evidential files to present to the CPS for charging decisions. We have updated the bereaved and survivors with our expected timescales and we know how long this sounds, on top of the very long time they have already waited.

To provide some context, the inquiry’s phase 1 report was more than 800 pages long. We expect the phase 2 report will be substantially longer and much more complex. We must fully assess the findings of the report – line by line – against the evidence we have gathered in our investigation.

It’s very possible we will then need to explore further evidence and witnesses, and interview some or all of the criminal suspects again.”