Director of company which refurbished Grenfell Tower ‘hangs up’ on Piers Morgan
Jen Mills for
Metro.co.uk
Wednesday 14 Jun 2017 6:44 pm
A director of the company which refurbished Grenfell Tower appeared to hang up during an interview with Piers Morgan.
Andrew Goldman, responsible for technology and marketing at Rydon, appeared on Good Morning Britain where he was asked about insulation cladding which may have led to the deadly fire spreading so quickly.
At least 12 people have been confirmed dead with the toll expected to rise.
‘We know your company did the refurbishment only last year and added all this exterior cladding,’ Piers Morgan said.
‘Almost all witnesses said they saw the cladding basically firing up – bits of it were igniting before their very eyes.
‘There will be many other people living in buildings with this type of cladding who want to know what the hell has gone on.’
‘Can you tell us what the cladding was made of?’
Responding, Mr Goldman said he did not know exactly what the cladding was made of and said he didn’t want to speculate before investigations could determine the cause of the fire.
In a fraught exchange, Mr Morgan told him: ‘These aren’t very satisfactory answers.’
Susanna Reid then asked him: ‘Do you know if this cladding is used in other of your projects? There has been some speculation it was used on the school near the block.’
But at this point the interview cut off.
People watching jumped to the possibility he hung up, which was acknowledged by Piers Morgan when he said he had given him a ‘hard time’.
Earlier in the interview, Mr Goldman had said: ‘We don’t know that there’s any direct link between the fire and the cladding at this stage. We have to wait for the outcome of the inquiries.’
He said he didn’t want to speculate on anything and clarified ‘the main purpose of the cladding is for insulation and protection from the external elements’.
He said: ‘We are shocked by what’s happened, our thoughts go out to those affected.
‘We are working with everybody we need to work with to find out what went wrong.’
Earlier today, policing and fire Minister Nick Hurd responded to people’s concerns about the insulation which some claim could act as a ‘chimney’ for the flames to run up the exterior.
He said authorities will ‘seek to identify towers that might have a similar process of refurbishment, run a system of checks so that we can, as quickly as possible, give reassurance to people.’