London Tower Fire

[jbird4049]

Covering an entire building with flammable insulation is really a type of evil, is it not? To save (back of envelope here) 0.002% of the total costs, what the Hell do I call that? Having an 24 story, 120 unit apartment block with only one entrance, no sprinklers, and no emergency escapes, is illegal in California, and I think the entire United States.

What happened was in no way, unpredictable. At all. It's like earthquake regulations in California. Every few decades along comes an earthquake that kills some people in some new way, and whoopsie, we need another regulation to cover that! Earthquake regulations here have no resistance from anybody regardless of political beliefs. Just like earthquakes here, fires have always happened everywhere, and if you want nightmare fuel, just do a little research on fire disasters. There are plenty of disasters that were the impetus for the creation of each fire safety regulation. I do not understand how unions, or public sector bloat, got into the conversation, or even connects with the fire.

I do see how corruption, stupidity, carelessness, and greed gets into though.

Great, so shit happens, and there's nothing the Leftist public sector unionized government actually could and/or would do to prevent it, so we can cut the public sector unionized employees by at least 80%, toss their pensions overboard, and when they inevitably riot about it, have the army shoot them and/or drive them into prison camps. Alls I'm sayun', yo.

And people have been doing things to save a few pennies that get other people killed since money existed. So it's wrong to note what happened this time and maybe changed what effectively murdered 50 plus people.

Except greed. It's likely to take God's intervention. Or at least the Second Coming.

[Smitty-48]

And people have been doing things to save a few pennies that get other people killed since money existed. So it's wrong to note what happened this time and maybe changed what effectively murdered 50 plus people.

Except greed. It's likely to take God's intervention. Or at least the Second Coming.

Doesn't sound like it, according to Monty, the difference in cost was negligible, what they were apllying was actually quite expensive rather than being a cost cutting measure, and in fact the government was allowing the cladding to be sold and used, just not for building above a certain height, so it seems much more likely that they simply werent aware that the cladding was in fact dangerous, nor of the byzantine and inherently confusing regulations about it, and so just went and purchased something legally for sale, without realizing that it was a fire hazard, and as nobody from the government had come to expect the building in almost four years, apparently there was no one in governing authority even supervising this permit.

If the cladding was legally for sale, no inspector had intervened, and there is reasonable doubt that it was misapplied intentionally, you haven't got a hope in hell of securing a criminal conviction here, and even in a civil case, it's entirely probable that the government itself will be named as being a liable party to the case.

It's public housing, regardless of subcontracting, the government is dualy liable, both as the ultimate housing authority, and the regulating authority which did not inspect, triply liable if you count the fact that they were allowing this ostensibly dangerous product to even be on the market at all.

[Montegriffo]

Ignorance is no defence in English law, If the regulatory authorities approved this cladding despite the fact it is banned where a building is over 18m tall then there is a clear case of criminal negligence. Makes no difference that they didn't know. It's their job to know and if they failed to do their job properly it's criminal negligence.
In the first hours after the fire the contractors repeatedly said that their work had passed all safety regulations. If true then those inspecting the work and passing it off as safe are criminally negligent.
Throw the book at them, right up to the charge of manslaughter and make sure no other tower blocks are clad in the same way.
Likewise it is the contractors responsibility to know what cladding is legal for buildings over 18m. If they didn't know that this cladding was banned in this application then they are also criminally negligent.

Heads on spikes outside the entrance to the builder's guild to deter future non-compliance....

[Speaker to Animals]

Sure. They will throw some middle class bureaucrat under the bus, and the bus will continue on as usual. Next time they burn twenty people to death, they will choose some other lowly employees of the bureaucracy to sacrifice.

This is how bureaucracies work, man. It's not unique to your nation. I see it in the Veterans Administration all the time. They don't give a shit about people or even human life. It's all about their jobs, pensions, and prerogatives. The actual people being "served" exist for them like cattle.

[Fife]

Clearly what they need are some more inspectors and some more regulations. It's time for them to get serious about safety.

[Montegriffo]

Clearly what they need are some more inspectors and some more regulations. It's time for them to get serious about safety.

Exactly. Cutting public services and reducing the numbers of inspectors and ignoring safety regulations is not going to work.

[Speaker to Animals]

Clearly what they need are some more inspectors and some more regulations. It's time for them to get serious about safety.

Exactly. Cutting public services and reducing the numbers of inspectors and ignoring safety regulations is not going to work.

[Smitty-48]

Ignorance is no defence in English law, If the regulatory authorities approved this cladding despite the fact it is banned where a building is over 18m tall then there is a clear case of criminal negligence. Makes no difference that they didn't know. It's their job to know and if they failed to do their job properly it's criminal negligence.
In the first hours after the fire the contractors repeatedly said that their work had passed all safety regulations. If true then those inspecting the work and passing it off as safe are criminally negligent.
Throw the book at them, right up to the charge of manslaughter and make sure no other tower blocks are clad in the same way.
Likewise it is the contractors responsibility to know what cladding is legal for buildings over 18m. If they didn't know that this cladding was banned in this application then they are also criminally negligent.

Heads on spikes outside the entrance to the builder's guild to deter future non-compliance....

Yes, well, not quite that simple I'm afraid, first there's the presumption of innocence, which, for the puposes of a trial, I would of course extend to all involved, next, in order to secure a conviction for homocide, you are required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, both actus rea and mens rea, to commit the offence, so it's not so easy as just getting a mob of ingnorant torch and pitchfork wielding peasants together and then lynching people at random.

Actus rea would require proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the deaths were directly caused by the cladding, mens rea would require proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the people who installed the cladding did so knowingly in a way which would lead to the deaths. It would actually be quite tricky to prosecute, because it's not conducive to an open and shut case.

[Smitty-48]

I mean, their lawyers are going to get in there and show that this building was built in 1974 and that there were all sorts of reasons why its aged design could have been the cause of the deaths, nothing to do with the renovations, and; "prove that it was anything my clients did or did not do, why don't you?", at which point, the jury's gonna be scratching their heads and not sure; reasonable doubt, not guilty.

They're saying things like "the cladding caused a chimney effect", OK, but is that the type of cladding or just that there was cladding? Is applying any cladding at all banned? Was the type of cladding directly the cause of the deaths? Good luck proving that, beyond a reasonable doubt, when you're talking a building which was almost half a century old, with likely a whole myriad of reasons why it burned, a confluence of circumstances therein.

In order to secure a criminal conviction, you have to prove a direct link, actus rea and mens rea, to the deaths, beyond a reasonable doubt, and nothing is going to be that clear and direct, in a case like this.

The defence doesn't have to prove that other factors were the causes of the deaths, they just have to show that they could have been, "Could it have been this? Could it have been that? So nothing to do with my client then? So these people could have been dead either way? Answer the question, yes or no?" At which point; reasonable doubt.

[Smitty-48]

Never mind that if politicians keep shooting their mouths off in the media about who was repsonsible, anybody but them, that in of itself can cause a mistrial, because the accused can't get a fair trial after the pols went knee jerk to convict them in the media from day one. Can't get off on a technicality? Oh yes you can, and the technicalities are flying fast and furious right now, because the policitians can't just shut the fuck up and wait until the evidence is gathered.

"The Minister of It Wasn't Me declared the cause from the get go without evidence, m'lord, how could my client ever get a fair trial after that?" ; mistrial, charged again, mistrial, tossed on a technicality.

If you want to secure a conviction for homocide beyond a reasonable doubt, everybody needs to just shut the fuck up, but if they can't just shut the fuck up but are rather inclined to try the case in the media, they're opening a path a mile wide for the defence team, doesn't even have to be a mistrial, evidence can simply be struck, ruled prejudicial to the accused, then that evidence is no longer available to the prosecution.