Leading human rights lawyer and GMLC patron Michael Mansfield QC has called on the Grenfell residents to insist that they were not ‘excluded’ from any forthcoming inquiry.
Michael Mansfield QC called on victims of the Kensington tower-block blaze which killed at least 79 people to act immediately: ‘Those who’ve got the strength have got to come together to put in representations about what this inquiry should be doing. Believe you me, if you don’t, they [the government] will. And if they do, they’ll make sure that you’re excluded.’
Mansfield continued: ‘You need to get it [the inquiry] on your terms – you need to get it to answer the questions you’ve got.’
The veteran barrister, who represented some of the families of the victims of the 1989 Hillsborough football stadium disaster, told the meeting held in the shadow of Grenfell Tower: ‘It’s not a matter of “do we have an inquiry or do we have an inquest” – you have both for goodness sake.’
‘As well as getting to the truth of what happened and ensuring accountability for what happened, you also – for your own benefit and all the other people who occupy towers or buildings of a similar kind – have to get things changed now.’
See the full article on the Legal Voice here.