Ahead of the anniversary of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, detectives have outlined the progress of the criminal investigation as they move towards the next stage of their enquiries.

Since the tragic events of June 2017, the Met has been investigating the fire to identify any criminal offences and if so, who is responsible. A team of 180 officers and staff remain dedicated to the investigation.

Since the fire detectives have:

• Identified and are investigating 19 companies or organisations and 58 individuals, as suspects.
• Entered an “early investigative advice” phase and submitted eight of 20 advice files to the Crown Prosecution Service.
• Interviewed under caution over 50 suspects for a total of more than 300 hours.
• Spent more than a year forensically examining Grenfell Tower, and painstakingly removing its exterior piece by piece.
• Collated more than 27,000 exhibits, which are held in a 635m² warehouse big enough to park 25 double decker buses inside. The exhibits include cladding, insulation, doors, windows and other parts of the building, down to screws, nuts and bolts.
• Followed up more than 27,000 separate lines of enquiry.
• Taken more than 12,000 witness statements.
• Retrieved more than 152 million documents and files.
• Evaluated 1,600 witness statements provided to the Grenfell Tower Public Inquiry, 300 days of evidence and over 320,000 documents disclosed by the inquiry.

Later this year, the public inquiry is expected to publish its Phase 2 report.

Police 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.

Officers believe the investigation team will need at least 12-18 months to fully assess the inquiry’s report and complete evidential files to present to the Crown Prosecution Service for charging decisions.

Deputy assistant commissioner Stuart Cundy 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.”

Crown Prosecution Service

So far, eight of 20 early investigative advice files have been submitted to the CPS with 12 other files in advanced stages of preparation. Each file examines a full range of offences including corporate manslaughter, gross negligence manslaughter, fraud and health and safety offences.

To illustrate the scale and complexity of the investigation, the covering report alone for just one of those advice files is 535 pages long and references more than 1,200 supporting evidential documents. Printed out, that file, in relation to just one company and its employees, stands at almost 7ft high.

A team of specialist prosecutors from the CPS will then carefully and thoroughly consider all the evidence, with the hope of making charging decisions by the end of 2026.

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.”

Funding (64%) and staff shortages (40%) top the list of the most significant barriers for teachers when it comes to booking trips. In response, and in a bid to get even more children on trips this academic year, Hyundai is boosting its commitment to school trips through its Great British School Trip (GBST) initiative with the launch of National School Trips Week.

The company has added an extra 25,000 school trip places to the GBST programme, pledging to support 60,000 children across the 23/24 academic year. This will mean that the total number of children supported across both Year 1 and 2 of the initiative is 90,000.

National School Trips Week will play host to over 30 of these essential educational experiences, across the full length of the country, supporting over 8,000 pupils across the week. Venues signed up to take part include English Heritage, PGL, Eureka! and the Royal Air Force Museum London.

The research, commissioned by Hyundai Motor UK, also revealed that 97% of teachers consider school trips as positive for fostering creativity, yet over three quarters (78%) admit that it’s harder to organise a trip with creativity as a focus. When surveying recent school leavers at the end of 2023, it was revealed that 72% wish they’d done more creative subjects at school, with 18% citing ‘creative thinking’ as a key quality they lack.

As part of National School Trips Week, Long Mead Community Primary School from Tonbridge attended the Turner Contemporary in Margate, which was the first time some of the Year 4/5 children had ever been to a gallery or the seaside.

Reggie Yates, Hyundai’s Educator in Residence, who attended the school trip to Turner Contemporary explains:

When I was younger, I couldn’t stand being cooped up in a classroom. I craved action outdoors. In fact, a particular trip that sparked me wanting to get into the career I do now was visiting the Natural History Museum, followed by a trip to the cinema to see Jurassic Park! Kids learn best by doing and therefore we mustn’t underestimate the value of hands-on learning experiences, which is why initiatives such as The Great British School Trip are so important.

With this increased commitment, Hyundai will continue to offer bursaries to help schools most in need fund their trips, which will cover booking fees and travel costs. To find out more about the programme and how you can get involved, please visit: https://greatbritishschooltrip.com/