A resident of Grenfell Tower warned its landlords in 2010 that an “inferno” could engulf the building and “trap the residents … with no escape,” the opening of the latest stage in the inquiry into the disaster heard. The written warning from leaseholder Shah Ahmed to the leaders of the Kensington and Chelsea Tenants Management Organisation (KCTMO) and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), emerged as lawyers for the bereaved and survivors accused the council of an “ethos of indifference or hostility [that] came to permeate the non-negotiable matter of fire safety” and claimed the fire was “a landmark act of discrimination against disabled and vulnerable people”. In opening statements to the inquiry phase that will examine the actions of the landlords as residents repeatedly raised safety concerns before the 14 June 2017 fire, Michael Mansfield QC, acting for some of the bereaved, claimed the disaster was rooted in a “political climate” fostered by both David Cameron, then prime minister, and Boris Johnson when he was mayor of London. He said Cameron wanted to unwind safety culture because it “gets in the way of profit” and that Johnson engaged in “austerity cuts to the fire brigade”. Ahmed’s warning predated that of another resident Ed Daffarn in a blogpost in November 2016 “that a serious fire in a tower block or similar high density residential property is the most likely reason that those who wield power at the KCTMO will be found out and brought to justice.” But the TMO hit back insisting it never “adopted a dismissive attitude towards residents or indeed towards their complaints and concerns”. It claimed Daffarn advanced “a highly personalised narrative” which only represented a handful of people. The TMO’s lawyer, James Ageros QC, said Daffran hadn’t predicted a cladding fire and said the disaster “was not caused by the malign governance of a non-functioning organisation [that Daffarn alleged]” but from “deep-rooted blindness in the private and public sector to the danger of materials regularly used in the building industry”. But the TMO had repeatedly shown “an obsessive defensiveness” towards Daffarn, said his lawyer Danny Friedman QC. Daffarn, who was accused internally at the KCTMO of “scaremongering”, survived the fire, but Mariem Elgwahry, Dennis Murphy, Berkti Haftom, and Sheila did not. They were among 60 residents, including Daffarn, to sign a petition asking for RBKC to investigate the treatment of residents. The petition was dismissed within RBKC and KCTMO as being “engineered” by Daffarn. RBKC responded by allowing the TMO to investigate itself and it “glowingly commended itself and its contractor”, said Friedman. It also emerged that the London fire brigade warned RBKC about dangerous cladding just two months before it went up in flames but the landlord failed to order checks, which the counsel for the bereaved said displayed “a staggering lack of concern” and “scant regard for safety”. The Conservative council was told by fire chiefs in April 2017 that cladding panels often did not comply with building regulations and could spread fire from flat to flat. But in what was described as an “extraordinary” decision, it did not investigate. The missed opportunity was revealed by Stephanie Barwise QC, representing other bereaved people and survivors. “RBKC prioritised cost over safety,” Barwise said. Mansfield said there was “discrimination of a class of people” and “a racial characteristic” to the neglect. The fire brigade’s 2017 warning about the cladding came shortly after the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower with plastic-filled panels that on 14 June 2017 were the main cause of the spread of the fire that killed 72 people. It was sent to Laura Johnson, the Conservative council’s director of housing, but the council took no action other than to forward the letter to the TMO with a note that read: “FYI.” Barwise said Johnson showed “a staggering lack of concern only tolerable in a culture with scant regard for safety”. In 2017 Johnson also delayed installation of door-closers across the TMO’s wider estate and held off an inspection programme because of the cost. This was “misguided and perverse” because two years earlier there had been a devastating fire at Adair House, one of its blocks, where door-closers had failed. Johnson also dismissed the tower as “a bad-tempered place” and complained a “general crossness has lingered and is stoked by various individuals with their own agenda”, according to internal emails. Friedman described how the residents’ “campaign for accountability” was defeated by “a systematic and concerted denial of [their] entitlements to be consulted, informed and listened to”. In 2014, after Daffarn had already written to the London fire brigade saying Grenfell residents had no confidence the tower had been assessed to cope with the refurbishment, the landlord refused to show Daffarn project meeting minutes because of “commercial sensitivity”, the inquiry heard. In fact, Friedman said, KCTMO thought that if he knew about problems this would “cause Mr Daffarn to raise more queries either on his blog or via further requests”. Had they been released, the minutes might have shown how the contractor had been tasked over five consecutive months with appointing a fire consultant. Describing this as “a genuine what if moment” he said: “For the TMO to withhold information because they did not like what their critics would do with it, was unlawfully perverse and a patent abuse of power.” Barwise revealed how in 2015 RBKC’s leader, Nick Paget-Brown, failed to implement audit tools sent to him by the London fire brigade specifically designed to ensure refurbishments did not impact upon fire safety. They had been designed by a working group after the 2009 Lakanal House fire in Southwark where six people died. She said the council’s half-yearly reviews of the TMO’s performance had been based on reports written not by the council’s officers but by the TMO itself. Health and safety reports had been written by the TMO’s fire safety adviser too – “thereby marking her own homework,” she said. The inquiry continues.