1. I Have Lived in North Kensington My Whole Life. My Parents, My Grandparents and Great Grandparents Are All from North Kensington

WITNESS STATEMENT OF LORRAINE BEADLE

1. I have lived in North Kensington my whole life. My parents, my grandparents and great grandparents are all from North Kensington. It is my home, and I would not want to live anywhere else. I am one of the original tenants of Grenfell Tower. I moved in to flat 13 on what became the 4th floor in September 1976 (TMOH00019187).

2. I have previously made a statement to the police. The police officer who interviewed me did so at the Cumberland Hotel a few weeks after the fire. He said I was the hardest person to track down as RBKC couldn't tell the police where I was. The officer asked me some questions about Grenfell Tower, such as whether we had sprinklers, smoke alarms and whether we had previously had fires at the Tower. I gave them a statement about these matters. I consent to the Inquiry obtaining that police statement to use in evidence. I have not previously made a statement to the Inquiry.

3. I am willing for this statement to form pati of the evidence before the Inquiry and to be published on the Inquiry's web site.

4. I have recently retired having worked for around 52 years. I have worked for the last 21 years at a high street banlc as a cashier.

Fire Safety concerns, advice and complaints

5. In the 42 years or so that I lived in Grenfell, there were a number of fires in the block. As far as I am aware, every fire at Grenfell, apart from that on 14 June 2017, was contained within the specific flat in which the fire had stmied in. Nobody was ever harmed in an adjoining flat. There had never been fires on my landing.

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IWS00001872/1 IVVS00001872_0001 6. I remember twice, apart from on 14 June 2017, where the fire brigade asked us to leave our propetiies, both of which were prior to the refurbishment of the building. When that happened, we would leave the building, wait outside for the fire brigade to extinguish the flames, which took around an hour, and then return to the building soon after. As I understood it, we were evacuated only as a precaution. The fires were kept within the specific flat within the Tower each time. I'm afraid I couldn't say when the fires happened because of the length of time I lived there. I would estimate they happened 15 years or more ago.

7. There were other occasions when the fire brigade attended the Tower but this was when people got stuck in the lifts when they broke down.

Fire exit routes

8. The emergency exit was via the stairs which could be accessed through the lobby of each floor of the Tower, but when the refurbishment stmied this would often be blocked off. I remember in October 2014 I raised my concerns about this with Rydon. I called Christina Stephanou and Maxine Igbinedion, both Rydon Resident Liaison Officers on their direct lines. Neither answered my call. I then called somebody at the TMO, but I can't remember who. I have since learned that in response to my questions, Siobhan Rumble (Neighbour Manager for Lancaster West at the TMO), said:

'In the event of a fire, as we know there is a stay put policy and evacuation would be via the lift not the stairwell, and how the barrier would be moved in this case. I did ask if Rydon had notified residents but they hadn't, this is a fault on their pati as if a letter went out then we wouldn't be having this conversation. I have expressed the importance of making sure residents and staff know what is happening' [see Exhibit LB/1 ].

9. I do not remember being given any fire safety advice from the TMO, RBKC, Rydon or any other patiy, either before or after I had raised these concerns. As fm· as I remember, nobody from Rydon or the TMO called me back in response to my concerns about the escape route being blocked. I think that this was awful. They did not treat fire safety

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IWS00001872/2 IVVS00001872_0002 seriously as an issue, and this example shows this. They did not deal with my concerns well at all on any level- they just did not seem to care.

10. It didn't feel like Siobhan Rumble was there for very long, but I got the impression that she took an instant dislike to me for some reason. Unhelpful doesn't even sum up what she was like but it's along the right lines. There was an occasion when I complained to her about shelves in my kitchen cupboards collapsing. She told me I wasn't entitled to a new kitchen under the "decent homes" scheme despite the fact that I had lived there since 1976. She said I was a working council tenant and so wasn't entitled to a new kitchen. She gave the distinct impression that she looked down her nose at me because in her eyes I was a "council tenant". She made me feel awful and I don't know why she would be motivated to do that. It was a similar attitude from others at the TMO, they had no regard for or respect for residents.

11. She used to work out of the office at the bottom of Grenfell Tower, and I think she didn't like me because I used to raise my concems with her about the refurbishment and the workmanship. I think I was entitled to complain if something wasn't working or if the work they did was shoddy but I was made to feel like I didn't have a right to complain.

12. During the building works Rydon also built temporary cupboards on the landing that were padlocked. Inside these were the materials that many of the workers and contractors used for the refurb. One time in October 2015, I noticed that there were so many of these materials (such as tins of paint, tools and other equipment) which were not properly cleared up after they had finished for the day, that this prevented access to the fire escape. I raised concerns about this with Rydon, but it kept on happening.

Windows

13. I remember receiving a knock at the door after work one evening in autumn 2015 from a man in a high visibility vest. I knew he worked for Rydon as I had seen him working on site during the refurbishment. He told me he wanted to come back the following day to replace the windows in my flat. I agreed to this, but told him that that I wouldn't be there as I would be at work and that my brother, John Beadle, would be instead.

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IWS00001872/3 IVVS00001872_0003 14. I went to work the next day, and didn't think anything more of it. However, when I got home from work I noticed straight away that something was not right with the windows. Before the windows were installed, the flats in Grenfell were always so wmm, and never cold. However, I could feel the cold when I walked into the room straightaway. I couldn't believe it, but there was an approximately 3 inch gap on both sides of the window; I could even just about fit my arms through the gap on each side. I had both lace curtains and heavy curtains over those windows, and I could still feel the draft through these. I had to put my coat on because it was so cold.

15. I went to the Rydon office straight away to complain and I spoke to the site foreman, whose name I cannot remember. I explained what had happened with my windows. He told me that somebody would be sent round the following day to smi the problem out. When I returned from work the following day, I spoke to my brother, John, who had been in all day and so saw how the Rydon workers had tried to fill the gaps in the windows. John told me that they had filled the gaps using a silicone gun. The worker from Rydon had even asked John to pull the heavy cmiains back while he was applying the silicone.

16. I cmmot understand why any decent contractor would use silicone to fill a gap of that size. It stopped the draft, but it was ugly and I didn't think these were the best materials to fill the gap with. It was clear that the windows did not fit. I could see that straight away.

17. Another problem we had with the windows was that the extractor fan they fitted in the kitchen was very noisy. Rydon had said to keep the electric switch for it switched on but I had to turn it off because it was so noisy. I didn't even think of calling Rydon or the TMO to fix it because I didn't have any faith in them doing it properly so just resigned myself to living with it and decided to just open the window if I was in the kitchen cooking so I didn't have to use the fan at all.

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IWS00001872/4 IVVS00001872_0004 Lifts

18. Even though my flat was on a relatively low floor in the block, on what became the fomih floor, it was still impmiant for me to be able to use the lift, especially when carrying shopping. It is hard for me to use the stairs, so having to do this so often was really difficult for me. The lifts were nearly always broken. Weekend after weekend, they would break on the Friday afternoon, and they would not be back working until the following Tuesday moming. I raised a number of complaints about this with the Estate Management Board (EMB) and, after it had gone, I went direct to the TMO. For example, I did this on 5 February 2003 (TMOH00019021). In response to this the EMB accepted that the lifts had been 'performing poorly over the last few years resulting in frequent breakdown' (TMOH00019020).

19. I complained many times to the TMO helpline about the faulty lifts. Whenever I did, I would be told that there was someone on site who could help me, but there never was. This is a good example of how the TMO did not care about us at all, as long as they got their rent. Their incompetence was amazing.

20. One of my neighbours even moved out of the Tower because they couldn't cope with the lifts breaking down all the time. This was despite them living there for decades. They moved out about 10 years ago.

Power surges

21. I was not affected by these, but I knew many others in Grenfell Tower were. I did briefly go to a meeting held by some of the Tower residents about this, which was in the new Leisure Centre. People from the TMO and RBKC I think were also there. Many residents were complaining about what had happened to their possessions, including the damage done to televisions, kettles and other electrical equipment. I did not stay for too long. I remember saying to my friend and Grenfell resident, Steve Power, who died in the fire, that because it was a power surge then it must have had something to do with electricity, and that this could cause a fire. I remember getting the feeling that the TMO didn't really seem to care about this in the same way that they didn't seem to care about anything to do with the residents.

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IWS00001872/5 IVVS00001872_0005 22. I did sign the petition on the power surges, because I was concerned about the impact of it on other Grenfell Tower residents, and how the TMO had responded to it (RBK00002270_006). I felt they weren't taking residents' concerns seriously.

General Repairs, Maintenance and Standards of Workmanship at Grenfell Tower

23. There were many times during which I went without basic things like hot water, sometimes for weeks at a time (TMOH00019092). Between 13 and 16 July 2012, for example, I had no hot water (TMOH00019252). Between August 2003 and June 2017, I reported over 30 repair issues to the TMO. This is in addition to those I reported before 2003. Of these, around half related to heat, boiler and gas, with most of the remaining complaints about my electricity and problems with my water supply. I attach the RBKC housing file records which document this as Exhibit LB/2:

24. If there was a leak or repair work that needed to be done the TMO would send around a general handyman rather than a specialist or a registered engineer. I think they did this to save money and that they didn't care about the quality of the work.

25. In 2004, I asked the TMO to replace all my kitchen cupboards. They refused despite them not having been replaced since I moved into the property in 1974. They only replaced some of them, but this meant they were in different styles to the other shelves so they looked different. Many of the new shelves were fitted badly and couldn't take the weight of basic food items.

26. As well as the poor quality of repair work, I never felt like either the TMO staff or their contractors would give me the time of day. Whenever I raised a concern or a complaint, I was just told to 'look in the tenants' handbook'. The attitude of the staff answering the emergency repair line was rude. It seemed to me that often they would make up excuses not to talk to me or respond to the concerns that I was raising with them.

27. In 2005 I wrote to the TMO a 'letter of complaint about the general state of my flat, and the appalling low level of service by Estate staff and Council employed contractors'

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IWS00001872/6 IVVS00001872_0006 (TMOHOOO 190 18). In the letter I wrote that 'each and every time that I have called your office, you and all your colleagues make up some excuse or other [not] to talk to me' (TMOH00019018_002). It felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall. A good example of this, although it did not concern my own flat, was the te11'ible way the TMO responded to complaints ofleaks in brother's old flat on Hurstway Walk, which I had made on his behalf (TMOH00019026).

28. I wrote to the Housing Ombudsman about all these issues in 2005, and although I don't remember exactly what they did in response to my complaint, I know that nothing really came out of it (TMOH00019018_002).

29. I remember that the new HIU they installed had a small box, like a thermostat with "Wilson Electric" written on it that was supposed to control the heating. It only worked for three days. So, the heating was working but the thermostat didn't work. I asked Wilson Electric for a new thermostat but they didn't provided one. I didn't complain to the TMO because I didn't see the point.

Doors

30. I remember when my new front door was installed it was very difficult to open and when I closed it, it would slam instantly. There were two or three times when the door it slammed shut so quickly that it caught the back of my heel and cut my ankle which was really painful. I went to the council offices at the bottom of the Tower to complain about this, as I couldn't properly open and close it. They said there was nothing they could do about it, and that strict guidelines were being applied. I believe this was a problem with the self-closing device on my door which comprised of three chains which came out of the door.

31. I am aware that Steve Power had a similar problem with his door. One day soon after the door was fitted, he took me up to his flat and showed me that he had cut the self closing devices off because they were dangerous and in his case the door had kept catching on his dogs' paws.

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IWS00001872/7 IVVS00001872_0007 32. I have a problem with my current front door which is not a fire door. Just a few weeks ago I received a letter from RBKC to say they were offering me a choice of fire doors which I've now chosen. However, the council sent this letter to the wrong address (5 Waynfleet Square). I only received the letter because the occupant there knows me. This shows to me the council is still acting incompetently even when it comes to the fire safety of former Grenfell residents. I exhibit that letter as LB/3

Community groups

33. I wasn't actively involved with any of the formal residents' groups that represented residents in Grenfell Tower and on the estate, such as the Grenfell Compact or the Lancaster West Residents' Association. This wasn't because I wasn't interested, but was instead because I would nearly always be tired once I got home from work. Ed Daffarn encouraged me to become more involved with the Grenfell Compact. He knew that I had lived in the Tower since it was built in 1976. Even though I couldn't attend their meetings I supported what the Grenfell Compact was doing, they were on our side.

34. Ed often knocked on my door and would update me on issues with the Tower and the refurbishment in order to keep me in the loop. I was grateful that he did this. He knew I had an interest in the tower and what was going on. He was very good with things like that, he was marvellous. I would also sometimes be updated by Stephen Power, who died in the fire, who was a very good and dear friend of mine.

Consultation

35. I went to a consultation event put on by the TMO and RBKC at the new Leisure centre regarding the refurbishment of the Tower. I can't remember the exact date of this, but it must have been during the summer as it was still light after I had got home from work. I remember all the plans and drawings were on boards around the Leisure Centre. I remember walking in, being asked my flat number and being pointed to display boards and being told that was what we were going to get. So it wasn't really a consultation at all, we were just being shown what was going to happen instead of being given options and asked which we would prefer. I went to have a look. I remember thinking that I

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IWS00001872/8 IVVS00001872_0008 didn't like the look of the proposals or the colour scheme. I don't remember whether residents were consulted about the type of materials used in the refurbishment or the cladding in particular.

36. All in all, the Grenfell propetiies were beautiful flats. If only RBKC and the TMO would have maintained them properly, they could have provided safe homes for families for years. In June 2015, I asked one of my local councillors, Cllr Judith Blakeman, about moving out of Grenfell, patily because I was so fed up with the refurbishment. This was a big deal for me, as by that point I had lived in the Tower for almost 40 years. I attach one of the emails around this as Exhibit LB/4

Aftermath

37. On the night of the 14 June 2017, I was on holiday in Cyprus. My daughter Nicky called me in the early hours that moming to infmm me of what was happening; that there was a fire in the block. It was about 5am in Cyprus. I immediately asked her if my brother John was ok and she told me he was; he had called her to say he was safe. The only other person I knew was ok was a friend called Sharon from a floor above. I turned on the BBC News straight away and saw the tower on fire, I could not believe what I was seeing. I was tenified that many of my other very close friends such as Dennis Murphy, Steve Power and Tony Disson were still trapped in there. I've known Dennis Murphy and his mother ever since he was a child, I used to babysit him. Nicky and Natasha Elcock are close friends, they are the same age and grew up together in the Tower. She was really worried about Natasha and her little ones, as was I. I broke down when I saw my home on fire and cried uncontrollably. I had 42 years of my life in that flat. I knew straight away that there would be things I would lose and never get back.

38. Later that day, I asked my daughter if I should come home straight away. She told me that there was nothing to come back for. She suggested I take the last two days of my holiday, and then come back after that, which was what I did. Once I had found out what had happened, I was so relieved that I was away during the fire itself. But I was also so wonied about my brother, who was staying in the flat that night. We spoke on

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IWS00001872/9 IVVS00001872_0009 the phone a number of times, including at 9am (UK time) on the morning of the 14 June, so I lmew he was okay, but obviously I was still wonied about him.

39. Over the next day or so, while I was still in Cyprus, the Police called me lots of times to check that I was alive. When I arrived back in the UK very late on 16 June, I got straight in a cab from Gatwick Airpmi to Hillingdon, where one of my sisters lives. By this time it was the early hours of 17 June. We had a couple of hours sleep at my sister's place, before she drove us into London the following morning at around 9ish. I remember seeing the Tower as anived into the Ladbroke Grove area, and some two days after the fire, I could still see the fire burning.

40. My daughter told me where I had to go to register for a hotel, so I went there, to the Carnarvon Castle pub at 310 Portobello Road. The whole thing was a nightmare. The first thing they did was tell me to go to the Post Office over the road to pick up the emergency payment, which I did. They gave me £500 cash and put the rest into my bank account. This went pretty smoothly. They told me to go tomorrow morning to the Westway to register, but my sister Tina had already done this for me.

41. I then went back to the pub to continue to make anangements to stay in a hotel, because, as things stood, I had nowhere to stay that night. The people there who were helping us were so nice and made us cups of tea and coffee. I don't think these people worked for the council. I think they were worked for the pub, as I think they were wearing the pub staffs uniform. I was then told after around 20 to 30 mins that a hotel had been ananged for me in South Kensington; I had no say in the choice of hotel, and other than asking the amount of people that the room was for (two: me and my sister Tina), they did not ask me anything what any other requirements that I may have had. I was with my daughter and my two sisters, along with my suitcases. The staff ordered a taxi for us, but we had to order a second taxi in order to get everybody to the hotel.

Hotel

42. By this point I was getting very tired; I had hardly slept the night before as I had been travelling back from my holiday. Once we anived at the hotel in South Kensington my daughter went to check us in. I can't remember the name of this hotel. We sat there for

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IWS00001872/10 IVVS00001872_0010 four hours or so, as we sat there becoming more and more frustrated, tired and anxious. We were told by RBKC staff at the Camarvon Castle that we had been booked into this hotel, but it became clear that we had not. I started to wony about where I would sleep that night, as the day was getting on. Once we were finally told that there was no room for us, my daughter called RBKC. They said they would call us back, which they did an hour later, sending us to the Cumberland Hotel at Marble Arch, saying a room had been booked for us here.

43. We were told by the RBKC staff to keep receipts for the travel. Once we anived at the Cumberland Hotel we had to wait another hour and a half while waiting for a room to be made ready for us. My two daughters had to leave the hotel to pick up their children from school. The hotel staff didn't update us with what was happening, and given what had just happened at the previous hotel I was becoming increasingly anxious. I was just told to take a seat and that something would be sorted out.

44. After an hour and a half we were shown to our room, which was right at the back of the hotel. This room was suitable in terms of its size, but it had no internet and no phone signal. We put up with it that night, as by that point all I wanted to do was to go to sleep. The next moming, however, I went to reception and complained about the lack of internet and phone signal. This was important to me, not only for me to remain in contact with my family, but also to be able to make anangements to find new housing.

45. The hotel staff said that we would be reallocated and that they would move our possessions into a new room. This happened, and again, despite the room being adequate in terms of its size and the number of beds, it still didn't have phone or internet signal. We raised this again, and we were finally moved to a room with phone and internet signal on the third attempt.

46. My sister and I stayed at the hotel for five and a half months while we attempted to anange permanent accommodation. I wasn't assigned a point of contact at the hotel who I could raise any concerns specific to my situation with, It was also never explained to me how long I would be at the hotel, and how long I had the room reserved for me. I assumed I would be there until I found somewhere else to live, but

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IWS00001872/11 IVVS00001872_0011 this was not properly explained to me. I didn't think I was going to be in the hotel for as long as it ended up being.

4 7. This hotel was on the corner of Marble Arch and Oxford Street; it was a very busy area in which emergency services sirens would often be heard at all times of night and day. This would often make me feel anxious as, although I was not present at Grenfell on the night of the fire, I was still deeply marked by what had happened.

48. We didn't have access to any cooking facilities in the hotel. We did have access to free laundry facilities at the hotel, which we did use a few times, but I didn't want to take advantage. More often than not I took my clothes to a local laundrette to have my clothes washed.

49. At the start, we were entitled only to free breakfasts at the hotel. Shmily after, RBKC gave us credit in our hotel account for an evening meal; we couldn't use the money for food anywhere other than in the hotel restaurant. However, my sister and I only did this for one week, as the menu was the same and we were becoming tired of eating exactly the same meal every evening. However, I was then assisted by an RBKC key worker, who was very helpful in helping us resolve this situation. After that, RBKC instead paid cash money into my banlc account. This was a lot better as it allowed us to eat elsewhere. I hated staying in the hotel. It wasn't homely at all. There was nothing there to remind me of my home where I had lived for so many years, and I couldn't settle in to any kind of routine.

Housing

50. A few days after I got back to the UK, I remember speaking to Sajid Javid MP, who was then Communities Secretary, in the Westway. His assistant said he wanted to speak to me. I went to speak to him but didn't know who he was at the time. He told me he understood I was one of the longest tenants of the Tower and I said I was. He told me that he was 'not having [me] at [my] age staying in a hotel', and he told me he would find a flat for me within 24 hours. I gave him my email address and my mobile number for him to contact me. The next day his staff sent me an email and gave me a phone call about the new flats that were being made available for Grenfell survivors on

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IWS00001872/12 IVVS00001872_0012 Kensington Row in the south of the borough. However, as I did not have phone or internet connection, due to the first two rooms in which I had been placed at the hotel not having a connection, I didn't receive these messages until after I had walked out of the hotel the next morning. I went straight to the W estway to find out if they were still available, and we were told that these properties were gone already. I don't think I would have wanted to move here anyway, as it wasn't in the area I grew up in and I didn't think of it as home. But even by this point, I was desperate to get out of the hotel as soon as possible.

51. The Council accepted that, despite me living alone most of the time, I required two bedrooms. That is because I care for my grandson at my flat on many weekends. My flat at Grenfell was a two bedroom flat and I wanted the same for any new accommodation that I was to move in to, as I understood from the leaflets that the Council were offering former Grenfell residents new housing on a like-for-like basis. However, as I had been staying in the hotel from the week after the fire and it did not seem like this was going to be resolved quickly, I told RBKC that I would be willing to accept a one bedroom flat on a temporary basis to speed everything up. The evidence of my conversation with RBKC on this is exhibited as Exhibit LB/5:

52. Time went on and my housing problems were still not solved. I was made two further offers of housing on 29 June 2017. I was concerned that I had not received any offers of housing until this point, as I understood many other survivors and from the fire had been offered housing. This was because my file was treated incorrectly by RBKC Housing Officers, who had confused my file with my brother's and had labelled my file incorrectly as 'Lo11'aine Fanell'. I had never gone by this name but it had been incorrectly recorded by RBKC for many years; it was my former partner's surname. The records of this are exhibited at LB/6: . This wasn't the only time that RBKC got my name wrong. In September 2018 they wrote to me with the surname 'Disson'. I have never gone by this name. 'Disson' was the surname of my ftiend, poor Tony, who tragically died in the fire, and who I had known for around 40 years. It broke my heart to see that letter, it was extremely upsetting and distressing. It was complete incompetence on their part and totally insensitive. All I got from them was an apology on the phone. I exhibit some of the emails discussing this as Exhibit LB/7:

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IWS00001872/13 IVVS00001872_0013 53. The offers of housing I received on 29 June 2017 were not right for me because of their location. I was in the Westway most days to see if any new accommodation was there for me. I was desperate to get out of the hotel.

54. In early-July 2017, while I was still in the hotel I'd been placed in since the fire happened, I was walking around the North Kensington area with my sister and I came across an open door at a flat on Waynflete Square. The propmiy was full of builders and redecorators who were renovating a property. I told the workers that I had been made homeless by the Grenfell fire, and asked if I could view the prope1iy there and then, which they agreed to. I viewed the flat and liked it. Straight after that I went to the Westway, and told the RBKC staff that I wanted to move in to the property I'd found.

55. RBKC offered me a temporary tenancy at the prope1iy on Waynflete Square on 10 July 2017. The flat was not yet ready, however, and needed further works to be done. I was not able to move in until 3 November 2017. I therefore spent five and a half months in the Cumberland Hotel on Marble Arch.

56. There is reference in my RBKC housing file to me 'refus[ing] to leave hotel until [my] brother, John Beadle was rehoused' [Exhibit LB/8: ]. I don't remember ever saying anything around this. Nothing could have been fmiher from the truth. This was a blatant lie. I wanted to get out of the hotel as soon as possible, and I was fed up with being there. That was why I was down at the Westway most days.

57. I originally moved into the flat on Waynflete Square temporarily, but I knew I wanted to stay here. I asked for it to be changed to a permanent tenancy, which it was on 6 November 2017. The first thing I asked the council to do was install blinds, as there is a clear view of Grenfell Tower from the living room window. At this point the Tower was uncovered, and I found it very difficult and upsetting to look out onto the remains of the Tower. I also asked for a new lock to be installed on the front door to increase security in the flat. They sorted this out quickly.

58. Once the blinds had been installed, I felt like I could settle a lot more easily into my new flat. However, it wasn't easy: when you've lived somewhere the best pmi of your life, 42 years, in the same flat and that is taken away from you by something like this, it

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IWS00001872/14 IVVS00001872_0014 is very difficult to move on. So many of my most cherished memories from so many different times of my life are in that building. I lost everything in the fire except for what I had in the suitcases I took on holiday, almost a lifetime's worth of possessions built up since I moved in in 197 6.

Voluntary and community groups

59. All of the community organisations that helped people after the fire were brilliant. I had most of my summer clothes with me, as I had taken them on holiday with me to Cyprus. In the two days immediately following the fire, and before I had returned to the UK, my family went to various local community groups who were distributing clothes and other emergency supplies to survivors and others, and picked up winter clothes for me. I went to Rugby Pmiobello Trust (RPT) a few days after my return from Cyprus to get a mobile phone and an iPad. The staff at RPT were very helpful - they were brilliant. I also visited the Latymer Christian Centre for clothes and hot meals for about 3 to 4 weeks after the fire. I went there because I was fed up with the hotel food. There was one time they called me up when they had obtained new bedding, which was much more comfmiable than what I had at the hotel. The community came together and brought everyone together in the days and weeks after the fire. They did a much better job of looking after residents than the council.

Counselling

60. I did not receive any offers of counselling during the first week after the fire, but I received a few emails from the outreach service at St Charles Surgery after a month or so asking if I wanted to access the mental health and counselling services being put on for survivors. I did not get any phone calls about this.

Keyworkers

61. I had so many keyworkers, I have lost count. Most of them were very difficult to contact, and the whole system was a nightmare. I had one lovely keyworker, the first I had immediately after I returned from Cyprus in the first week after the fire. She was

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IWS00001872/15 IVVS00001872_0015 helpful with everything I asked of her, including, as mentioned above, how she helped me to obtain evening meals and for me to receive cash from RBKC for this. After her, however, I had a further 8 or 9 keyworkers. Some of these I have met only once or twice. Some I tried to contact, but had no luck as I called them and they never answered. I never met these ones at all.

62. Each keyworker would give me his or her mobile number, but I was only able to speak to them very rarely; usually the call would just go straight to answerphone. It also wasn't very helpful to have my keyworker change so often. It made it difficult to build a relationship with them. Overall, therefore, apart from my very first keyworker, the system was generally not very helpful in smiing out the problems I had.

63. I don't bother with keyworkers anymore because they are a waste oftime. If I need any help I go straight to Grenfell United and if they say they will do something, they do it. They are brilliant and have given me so much suppmi since the fire. I know Ed Daffarn and Natasha Elcock, of the residents, are involved with it as is Howard who used to work at the St. Clements St J ames Church and who has been brilliant. At Grenfell United we are treated as individuals, with some decency and respect for us as human beings. We had none of that from the TMO and the Council. I don't know where we would be without Grenfell United.

The Press

64. Somehow, some journalists got my phone number. I have no idea how they got this, but once they did they called me up all the time. I received emails too. My sisters also got this. They drove me mad for months afterwards. My sister's advice was just not to answer these calls. I found them really stressful. I volunteered to do one interview for the BBC soon after the fire, but I found it so hard and I got really upset making it. I was in tears. Apart from the help from my sister I felt like I was left on my own to deal with this. It felt like another thing to have to deal with.

16 Lorraine Beadle

IWS00001872/16 IVVS00001872_0016 Conclusion

65. I think the Council and the TMO responded badly to what happened after the fire. They did not react quickly at all and were very slow. I got the feeling that they tended to resolve problems I had especially slowly with me. It was just a feeling I got. RBKC and the TMO simply could not handle the scale of what happened at Grenfell. They were clearly not prepared for it.

66. The Council and the Government's attitude was to throw money at people and to expect that they will be happy. But that was never going to bring people back, and to give people back what had been lost. I want the Inquiry to get to the bottom of what happened at Grenfell and why the Council and others responded so badly to the fire.

I am willing for this statement to form part of the evidence before the Inquiry and to be published on the Inquiry's web site.

Statement of Truth

I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true

Signed:

Date:

17 Lorraine Beadle

IWS00001872/17 IVVS00001872_0017