The Metropolitan Police and Crown Prosecution Service are expected to make decisions in 2026 about potential criminal charges arising from the Grenfell Tower fire of June 2017 that killed 72 people, following the completion of the Phase 2 inquiry report that made extensive findings about the systemic failures by multiple organisations — including the local authority, building management company, refurbishment contractors and product manufacturers — that contributed to the unprecedented loss of life in a modern UK residential building.
The Phase 2 report, which completed its work after an extended period of hearings, public engagement and deliberation, found that the fire spread as it did primarily because of the use of combustible cladding materials whose fire performance was misrepresented by the manufacturer and whose approval for use on high-rise residential buildings involved failures in the regulatory testing and certification system. The report also found failures in the building's management, in the way fire safety concerns raised by residents were dismissed, and in aspects of the emergency response on the night of the fire.
The families and survivors of Grenfell have waited nearly a decade for the accountability that they believe is owed to those who died and to the community that was devastated by the disaster. Their long campaign has maintained pressure on the investigation and prosecution process and has been characterised by dignity and determination despite the profound trauma that the families continue to carry.
Legal experts noted that the translation of inquiry findings — which operate to a different standard of proof than criminal proceedings and serve a different purpose — into prosecutable cases is not straightforward. Demonstrating criminal culpability beyond reasonable doubt requires evidence of individual or corporate wrongdoing meeting the specific elements of relevant offences, which is a higher and more precisely defined threshold than the inquiry's findings of systemic failure.
