Survivors of the Grenfell fire have called the appointment of Benita Mehra into the inquiry a “slap in the face”.
Last month, prime minister Boris Johnson appointed Benita Mehra, an engineer, to assist Sir Martin Moore-Bick, a retired judge who is leading the inquiry into the disaster that claimed 72 lives. Mehra previously ran an organisation that received a £71,000 grant from the charitable arm of Arconic, the US conglomerate that made the aluminium composite cladding panels used on Grenfell.
Now, Grenfell United is calling for Mehra to stand down before hearings restart on 27 January with an examination of how the Arconic cladding panels were chosen, their safety testing, marketing and promotion.
The Arconic Foundation grant was awarded to the Women’s Engineering Society charity, which Mehra chaired from 2015 and 2018. She helped draft the application and the funds arrived three months after Grenfell in 2017, the charity confirmed. It was the largest grant received that year. Mehra remains a trustee.
