Six men have been arrested over the viral video showing the burning of a model of Grenfell Tower.
In the shocking video, a group are shown posing with a cardboard mock-up of the tower which included paper cut-out images of people trapped behind windows.
The group place the cardboard model on a born-fire and set it alight and they can be heard ridiculing the pleas of the victims with phrases such as, “help me” and “jump out the window”. Notably, one said, “that’s what happens when they don’t pay their rent.”
The men arrested are aged 49, 19, 46 and 55 and they were arrested on suspicion of a public order offence. Police searched a house in South Norwood in South London and left with bags of evidence.
Rukayet Mamadu who experienced and survived the tragic fire which claimed the lives of 72 people in June 2017 said, “It’s chilling, it’s cold-blooded. I feel so bad, let alone people who lost relatives…this should be brought to justice.”
The video was heavily condemned on social media; Theresa May described it as “utterly unacceptable”, the home secretary Sajid Javid labelled it “shameful” and the shadow home secretary Diane Abbot as “hateful”.
Moyra Samuels from the Justice For Grenfell group who have campaigned for justice for the victims and the bereaved families since the fire spoke to BBC News and described the burning of the effigy as “a disgusting attack on vulnerable people”.
In response to the allegation that this act was racially motivated, Moyra added, “there is a worrying rise of racism in this country at the moment. And that is concerning because it’s now starting to impact on us directly, which means that we actually need to be thinking what we do about this, and how we respond to this as a whole”.