No criminal charge decisions about Grenfell Tower until end of 2026, says CPS

With the seventh anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire near, the Met Police has set out the latest steps with the criminal investigation where the sheer volume of information means that the Criminal Prosecution Service won’t be pressing criminal charges until at least the end of 2026, nearly ten years after the fire in west London where 72 people died.

The criminal investigation is independent of the public inquiry, which published its first report in 2019 and is expected to publish a second report later this year. 180 officers in the capital continue to work on the criminal investigation which so far has identified 19 companies or organisations and 58 individuals as suspects.

The Met has interviewed under caution over 50 suspects for a total of more than 300 hours; collated more than 27,000 exhibits, which are held in a 635m² warehouse big enough to park 25 double decker buses inside; taken more than 12,000 witness statements and retrieved more than 152 million documents and files.

The work involves reviewing, line by line, the Grenfell Tower Inquiry reports – the second of which is expected to be much longer than the initial report. It will take the force until at least the end of 2025 to assess the phase two report and finalise files ready to present to the CPS for charging decisions.

“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.”

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy, Met Police.

DAC Cundy confirmed that 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. He said that just one of those files, when printed out, stands at 7 feet high.

Rosemary Ainslie, head of the CPS Special Crime Division said that her team had been working closely with the Met but they would need time to review the final file carefully and thoroughly before making their decisions. “It is our hope that by the end of 2026, we will be in a position where we are making decisions.”

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