Grenfell contractors ‘should have known cladding was combustible’

Expert witness tells inquiry of 20 serious fires that meant danger of panels was well known in industry

The builders who erected the Grenfell Tower facade which burst into flames killing 72 people should have known the materials they used were combustible, according to an independent expert witness to the public inquiry into the disaster.

Jonathan Sakula, a highly experienced facade engineer who has worked on 122 different projects internationally, listed 20 serious cladding fires around the world in the years preceding the June 2017 disaster that people in the industry knew about. They included seven fires in towers in the United Arab Emirates that were particularly prominent in the press - including a blaze at the 63-storey Address hotel in Dubai where similar plastic-filled aluminium panels to those used on Grenfell fuelled a huge blaze.