26 June, 2017
The Grenfell Tower blaze which has left at least 79 people dead was the result of a fridge fire, Metropolitan Police confirmed on Friday.
"I have made clear to the company that I will expect them to replace any item without delay if it is established that there is a risk in using them", he said.
When speaking about the 79 people dead or missing, presumed dead, McCormack said: "I fear that there are more". "The initial tests on equivalent aluminum composite tiles failed the safety tests".
McCormack said the department's priority was "to understand who was in Grenfell Tower", and wanted to hear from anyone who was in the building on the night of the fire.
Downing Street has ordered an "immediate examination" of the Hotpoint model, while a spokesman for the household appliance firm said it was "working with the authorities" to assist with the investigation.
According to the BBC, a Premier Inn spokesperson said: "We were extremely concerned to learn that they had used a cladding that does not appear to comply with recognised government guidance on compliance with the Building Regulations for use in high rise buildings and are seeking to address this with the developers".
"Preliminary tests show the insulation samples collected from Grenfell Tower combusted soon after the test started", McCormack told journalists gathered outside Scotland Yard. Tests so far have found that at. CNN reported that investigators are focusing on the role that cladding, apparently used in recent renovations of the tower, may have played in the blaze. The manufacturer will conduct further testing on the appliance, McCormack said. Nine of the deceased have now been formally identified, but McCormack said investigators may never be able to identify all of the victims.
McCormack also repeated calls for anyone with information on who might have been in the tower to come forward.
"We now have expert evidence that the fire was not started deliberately", McCormack told reporters in London.
The detective superintendent also said she is anxious that the authorities might not have a true sense of how many people were in the building, in part because people who lived there or knew someone who did might be fearful of having their immigration status reviewed.
McCormack said Grenfell is one of the "largest and most complex" investigations the Met Police has ever undertaken.
