A cladding company boss has denied responsibility over the Grenfell Tower fire despite being named more than 100 times in the report.
The final report found that Claude Wehrle, the former head of the technical sales support team at manufacturer Arconic, had resorted to ‘deliberate dishonesty’ to sell cladding in Europe.
The Frenchman has since tried to distance himself from blame by claiming to ‘not [have been] the one making decisions’.
However, the report found that Mr Wehrle knew the cladding would burn faster if it was folded into box shapes – a standard form in the industry – following routine testing of the product in the 2000s.
Despite this, emails uncovered from 2010, show how he told colleagues to keep this ‘VERY CONFIDENTIAL’ as otherwise it would not meet European fire standards for tall buildings.
Before going on that same year to tell a customer that the box shape would be safer.
Sir Martin’s report said: ‘Mr Wehrle’s frankness with his own colleagues suggests that they knew as much as he did.’
He has even further prompted outrage from survivors of the disaster by refusing to attend the inquiry, citing an obscure French law to justify – a claim Sir Martin said was ‘debatable’ at best.
Arconic also withheld the test results from a British body which issued product safety certificates used in the construction industry.
Deborah French, Arconic’s UK sales manager who sold the panels for the Grenfell refurbishment project, was found to be ‘clearly at fault’ for failing to pass on information to Arconic’s customers about the danger of the cladding, which she was told about directly.
She could not explain this omission to the inquiry. The report said the failures of both Mr Wehrle and Ms French ‘reflected a sustained and deliberate strategy by Arconic to continue selling Reynobond 55PE in the UK based on a statement about its fire performance that it knew to be false’.
Speaking to the BBC Mr Wehrle said: ‘There are people in that company who were better placed than me to make that kind of decision.’
He continued that the deaths were ‘a tragedy and more than a pity’, saying, ‘I feel the same way any other human being would, whether bearing no responsibility at all or not.’
Responding to the fact his name appears more than a hundred times in the inquiry’s final report, Mr Wehrle said: ‘I can’t say whether it is fair or unfair. That’s about justice.’
Yesterday the former director of public prosecutions Lord Macdonald warned that criminal trials against anyone involved in the tragedy may not begin until 2029.
Offences being considered include corporate manslaughter, gross negligence manslaughter, fraud, and health and safety offences, police have said.
‘Unless processes are massively expedited, justice is a very long way away,’ said Lord Macdonald.
This comes as the Met police have been forced to defend the fact that it will take another 12-18 months for their officers to go through the findings of the report looking for any criminals offences.
The Met’s deputy assistant commissioner, Stuart Cundy, justified the wait, saying: ‘We have one chance to get our investigation right.’