'Lessons learned? Obviously not': Dad whose daughter died in 2009 tower blaze says Grenfell tragedy brings back nightmare
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Pip Hickman knows only too well the horror being suffered by families who lost relatives in the Grenfell Tower blaze .
His eldest daughter Catherine perished in Britain’s previous worst tower block blaze at Lakanal House in Camberwell, South East London, in 2009.
The fashion designer, who had created clothes for Kylie Minogue and Jade Jagger, died in her 11th floor flat in the 14-storey building, which had no sprinkler system.
Helen Udoaka, 34, and her 20-day old baby Michelle, and their neighbour Dayana Francisquini, 26, and her children Thais, six, and Felipe, three, also lost their lives.
(Photo: Daily Mirror)
The inquest into their deaths found that the cladding panels fitted on the outside of the building when it was refurbished two years previously were not fire resistant and may have allowed the blaze to spread in less than five minutes from the flat where the fire started, to the one above - Catherine Hickman’s.
Residents didn’t know what to do if fire broke out, and Judge Frances Kirkman said landlords should be encouraged to fit sprinkler systems and that the government should publish guidance clarifying when residents should stay put or leave in the event of a fire.
Catherine Hickman’s dad, retired farmer Pip, 71, said hearing the news of the Grenfell Tower blaze brought the horrific memories of his daughter’s death flooding back – and left him questioning whether any lessons had been learned from the fire that claimed her life.
Speaking from his home in Romsey, Hampshire, he said: “You do hope lessons have been learned but obviously not. When I put the news on and saw what had happened, my first thought, was ‘oh no, not again’.
(Photo: A)
“But if you put plastic cladding on the outside of a building then what do you expect?
“It is just horrendous, I can’t bear to think what the death toll will be.”
Catherine, 31, had lived in flat 79, directly above flat 65 where the fire started.
She was on the phone to the fire brigade control for 40 minutes before the operator could no longer hear her breathing.
Catherine’s horrified dad Pip watched the news footage of the fire at Grenfell Tower spread up the building, fearing the worst.
He said: “That building had been refurbed, just like Lakanal House where my daughter died. I could see the thick acrid smoke going up the building – that is what kills people.
“In the Lakanal refurb when they changed the windows they should have been fire-proofed, but for some reason the specification was changed and they weren’t fire-proof. It was for the same cost so I never understood it.”
The inquest heard the panels around the windows had not been fire-resistant.
Pip added: “When the fire broke out it went straight up the outside of the building to below my daughter’s window.
“In any fire the fire doors should do their job and stop the smoke and flames coming through. They didn’t in Lakanal and it looks the same with this fire.
“Fires break out in tower blocks all the time, but they should be contained in a concrete pod.
“I don’t know what the specifications are of the Grenfell Tower, it is very early days, but it will all come out in the end.
“It is sickening to see that it has happened again, I hoped lessons had been learned after what had happened to my daughter.
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“Watching the news this morning the fire seems to have gone up the outside of the building. At one point I could see fire at every window, and it is the smoke that is deadly too.”
It was only in February this year that Southwark Council was ordered to pay £570,000 in fines and costs for fire safety failures for the Lakanal House fire after the London Fire Brigade brought a prosecution.
Southwark Council apologised and said they had invested £62m to make homes safer, and urged other landlords to do the same to make sure a tragedy like Lakanal was never repeated.
But that is slim comfort for Pip Hickman and the families desperately waiting for news at Grenfell Tower.
“We know only too well what those people are going through,” he said sadly. “And there is plenty more to come for them as well. You never get over something like this, you just have to learn to live with it.”