Met Police seeks criminal charges for up to 57 individuals over Grenfell Tower fire

The Metropolitan Police said it will submit evidence files to the Crown Prosecution Service by the end of September 2026, seeking criminal charges against up to 57 individuals and 20 companies over the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people on 14 June 2017.

Potential offences under consideration include corporate gross negligence manslaughter, fraud, health and safety breaches and misconduct in public office, the force said in an update at New Scotland Yard. A final decision on whether to bring charges could take until June 2027, with any trials unlikely to begin before 2029.

Operation Northleigh, the £150 million probe into the disaster, has examined the actions of 15,000 people across 700 organisations in what the Met described as the largest and most complex investigation it has ever carried out. Police said 165 million electronic files had been gathered and searched, while 14,400 witness statements have been taken. Forensic teams spent 14 months at the site gathering evidence. So far, 15 of the 20 case files have been passed to the CPS for advice.

Garry Moncrieff, from the Metropolitan Police, said the final number of people and organisations being considered for charge was "not expected to vary a lot" when the full submissions were made in September. "We have gathered strong evidence," Moncrieff told reporters at a Scotland Yard briefing. He added: "It is important that we do it once and do it right."

The Met Police chose to wait for the findings of the Grenfell Tower fire public inquiry, which began in 2017 and concluded in 2024, before pursuing criminal charges. Moncrieff said this had added time to the investigation but had not damaged it.

Michael Mansfield KC, a barrister representing some of the victims, criticised the approach. Speaking to BBC Radio 4's World At One, Mansfield said the decision to wait for the inquiry to conclude "tacks on five or six years or more", describing it as "an unwarranted delay". He added: "There was an opportunity to have not delayed this long if the police investigation had started at the time the inquiry did."

A spokesman for Grenfell United, which represents some of the bereaved families and survivors, said the development was "an important step in a process that has already taken far too long". The group said: "For our community, this is not news we meet with celebration. We meet it with caution, grief and determination. We have waited almost a decade for accountability."

Grenfell Next of Kin said the news was of "little comfort to us" and that "there is a complete breakdown in trust and confidence". The organisation added: "The criminal investigation and justice process should always have come first and been given priority. Instead, the £172m Public Inquiry was prioritised ahead of criminal accountability and delayed our justice."

Jackie Leger and Bernie Bernard, the sisters of Raymond "Moses" Bernard, who died in the fire, said they hoped to see charges brought against "those complicit in the deaths of the 72 victims". Bernard told the BBC: "The decision makers need to be brought to justice, not middle management, not lower management, but the people that made the decisions need to take responsibility for what happened at Grenfell."

Moncrieff said investigators were building full-scale replica sections of the tower at a cost of £2 million in preparation for possible court proceedings.