Here is Incident Commanders Mike Dowdens final day of evidence to the inquiry with a following summary of evidence he has already provided.
After 3 days of giving evidence I shall now summarise what we have learned after hearing all evidence from Incident Commander Michael Dowden.
Mr Dowdens rank only gave him authority to command a 4 pump fire. He was completely out if his depth and expectations of him far exceeded his knowledge, training and experience.
Mr Dowden had never had any practical training dealing with a high rise fire other than on a station training ground where the bottom two floors of an 8 story training tower were used to simulate a high rise fire.
Mr Dowden had only ever completed basic station based training on policies and procedures relating to Incident Command Decision Making and IC Procedures. He is also recorded as giving training courses on training records but on being quizzed on the details of the Policies and Procedures his knowledge on the subject matter appeared vague at best.
Mr Dowden had only ever attended one high rise fire at his current rank, this fire was at Shepherds Court in Aug 2016 and by the time he had got there the fire was extinguished.
When asked to explain his understanding of the key points of Policy 431 (Decision Making) Mr Dowden was unable to identify the number 1 priority key point of that policy which was to save life. Mr Dowden was under the impression that the number one objective was not to put fire fighters at any risk
On arriving at Grenfell Tower Mr Dowden did not complete a Dynamic Risk Assessment and did not even notice that the tower was covered in cladding. His risk assessment was done mentally drawing conclusions from "his previous experience"
Mr Dowden had not familiarised himself with the layout, design, possible hazards or any other relevant information on a previous familiarisation visit to Grenfell Tower.
Mr Dowden did not see the need or importance of contacting a responsible individual to get important information on the Tower once arriving on scene.
Communication between the control room and the fire field was virtually non existent due to all crew members having specific job roles on arriving meaning nobody was manning the radio.
Mr Dowden did not come to the understanding that there were people in the building until 1.30am, at this point the incident was up to 20 pumps.
Mr Dowden was unaware that fire would be able to penetrate other compartments from the exterior.
Mr Dowden said his decision making was heavily impaired by the amount of traffic coming through his radio but had no recollection of speaking to any fire fighters tackling the fire or to anybody in the control room during the hour he was Incident Commander.
All messages passed to him testified by other fire fighters during the incident Mr Dowden had no memory of.
Mr Dowden at no time during his commanding of the incident declared it a major incident.
Mr Dowden did not see the need to change the stay put policy even when people were seen coming out of the building showing obvious signs of smoke inhalation at 1.30am because he thought they would still be able to put out the fire.
When asked what plan Mr Dowden had for putting out the fire he could not offer an answer.
Mr Dowden sent a team of fire fighters up to the top of the tower to try and tackle the fire from there despite not having any plan of how to access the roof and also having no idea of how the water pressure would be affected by using a dry riser on the top floor.
Mr Dowden was unable to answer when asked what the water pressure would be at a working height of 60 metres.
Mr Dowden did not retract or question the stay put policy because he had never been in that situation before.
I've listened very intently to all of Mr Dowden's evidence and can conclude this.
This man should never have been in that position in the first place. The chain of command appeared non existent during the first hour, which was the most critical time. His apparent inability to foresee any potential risk to the residents trapped inside highlight how far our of his depth he was.
If anybody else invests the time to listening to his testimony you will come to the same conclusion as me. I wouldn't have had this man monitoring a Nov 5th bonfire.
I feel this is the first of a long line of scapegoats.