London police have arrested five people over a video that showed a cardboard model of Grenfell Tower being burned on a bonfire, in an apparent reference to the 2017 inferno that killed 72 people.
The men ranged in age from 19 to 55.
Survivors of the 2017 blaze expressed disgust at the video that showed a large flammable model marked “Grenfell Tower,” complete with paper figures at the windows, being set on fire.
Bystanders could be heard mockingly saying, “Help me, help me!” and “Jump out the window!” One of the individuals wiggled a cutout of a person in a window, sparking laughter. A person said, “Stay in your flat, we are coming to get you,” in an apparent reference to the stay-put policy that may have cost lives in the fire.
Another individual can be heard saying, “That’s what happens when they don’t pay their rent.”
The video ends as the model is completely consumed by the fire, with one bystander saying “Perfect.”
Prime Minister Theresa May condemned the video in a tweet.
“To disrespect those who lost their lives at Grenfell Tower, as well as their families and loved ones, is utterly unacceptable.”
“So many people lost so many loved ones, and many more have been deeply affected. To mock that disaster in such a crude way is vile,“ said Cundy. “I can’t imagine the distress this video will undoubtedly cause to bereaved families and survivors,” he said.
London Fire Commissioner Dany Cotton, who was at the scene of the harrowing blaze, said the video was “appalling and disturbing,” according to The Metro.
Moyra Samuels, part of the Justice For Grenfell campaign group, spoke of the outrage “right across the country, of ordinary decent people who actually saw it for what it was.”
She told BBC Breakfast it was “a disgusting attack on vulnerable people,” The Metro reported. Samuels added “We have no doubt that there are actually decent, generous people across Britain and this actual act doesn’t represent ordinary British people.”
While it was not clear when the video was taken, it emerged on social media at a time of year when Britons celebrate Guy Fawkes Day. The November holiday uses fireworks and bonfires to mark Fawkes’s failure to blow up Parliament in 1605.