Five men hand themselves into police station as Grenfell Tower video sparks outcry

Five men have handed themselves into a South London police station last night amid an investigation into a video showing the burning of an effigy of Grenfell Tower.

The Metropolitan police said the men – two aged 49 and the rest aged 19, 46 and 55 – were arrested under section 4a of the Public Order Act and taken into custody.

Police had appealed for information after a group of people burned a model of Grenfell Tower and laughed as they pretended to be trapped residents who died in the flames on 14 June 2017.

A video posted online showed a large cardboard model marked “Grenfell Tower” being placed over a fire in what appeared to be someone’s back garden.

Bystanders could be heard imitating voices from inside calling “Help me, help me!” and telling them “Jump out the window!” One of them waved a cutout of a person in a window, and other faces in the tower were cut from brown paper or had been coloured brown. To laughter, one person said “Stay in your flat, we are coming to get you”, an apparent reference to London Fire Brigade’s stay-put policy that may have cost lives in the fire.

Someone else can be heard saying: “That’s what happens when they don’t pay their rent.”
The Met’s Grenfell Tower investigation team is leading enquiries.

Picture: Prince Harry, The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, The Duchess of Cornwall and The Prince of Wales attend the Grenfell Tower National Memorial Service at St Paul’s Cathedral in London, to mark the six month anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire last December. Photo: PA