Grenfell Testimony Week: Father tells of stillborn son's lost life

Organisers said Testimony Week is to give the bereaved and survivors an opportunity to speak to organisations

The father of a baby who was stillborn after the Grenfell Tower fire has described the life his son could have had to the companies that many survivors and bereaved families blame.

Marcio Gomes spoke of the family taken from him and his son Logan.

He described his family's excitement at the new arrival and detailed the experiences - such as hearing the baby's first cry - he will not have.

He said: "This is what you have taken away from me".

Marcio Gomes, pictured at the Grenfell inquiry in 2018, described the life his son could have had

Grenfell Testimony Week forms part of an agreement signed in 2023 following the settlement of a damages claim involving about 900 cases and a global sum of about £150m in compensation.

The fire, in the 23-storey North Kensington tower block in the early hours of 14 June 2017, killed 72 people and was one of the UK's worst modern disasters.

Organisers said the testimony week is being held to give the bereaved, survivors and residents an opportunity to "speak directly to representatives from the defendant organisations that many of them hold responsible for the fire".

Opening the testimonies, Mr Gomes, at times tearful and pausing to compose himself, told the firms his son, his "prince", would by now have celebrated his sixth birthday.

Mr Gomes and his wife Andreia Perestrelo lived with their two daughters in the tower for 10 years. All four narrowly escaped the blaze, but Logan did not.

Looking directly at representatives from companies associated with the tower, as well as the council and government, who sat silently to his right, he said: "This is what Logan's life would've been. This is what our lives would've been."

'I don't recall'

A film of excerpts of the inquiry into the disaster was also played, in which various people, including former government minister Lord Eric Pickles were heard saying they "could not recall" when asked questions during the inquiry.

One clip of Lord Pickles, who was secretary of state at the Department for Communities and Local Government between 2010 and 2015, captured him noting how much of his time the inquiry was taking up.

Lord Eric Pickles apologised to the inquiry after getting the number of deaths wrong

Other testimonies included that of Emma O'Connor, who lived on the 20th floor of the tower and managed to escape with her partner on the night of the fire. Ms O'Connor, who is disabled, said: "I still struggle every day with survivor's guilt."

An actor read a statement by Behailu Kebede, in whose flat the fire began.

Mr Kebede has been cleared of any blame by the inquiry into the disaster, but in his statement he told of the "deep shame" that remained with him and the pain he felt about what happened.

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He spoke of the "special place" Grenfell had been for him before the fire, but described how he felt he had to "hide away" after what happened because of media attention, and how the ongoing sense of trauma kept him from attending testimony week.

He said those responsible had failed to admit any fault in the immediate aftermath, leading to "division and confusion" among victims about where blame lay.Before the testimonies, the names of all those who died in the fire were read aloud, followed by a 72-second silence - one for each.

Representatives from Celotex, Exova, London Fire Brigade, Kingspan, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Rydon, and Whirlpool are all present at testimony week, alongside representatives from the Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Arconic, which supplied the cladding on the outside of the tower, said it had made a "significant" financial contribution to fund the event but sent no representatives.

In closing submissions to phase two of long-running inquiry into the disaster in November 2022, lead counsel Richard Millett KC accused several firms of a "merry-go-round of buck-passing" in order to protect their own interests.

The resulting phase two Grenfell Inquiry report has not yet been published.

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