Firefighting in the witness box: Kingspan’s pushback against allegations

As the Grenfell Tower inquiry continues to shine a spotlight on Kingspan, the Irish building materials giant is attempting to salvage its reputation

Since the beginning of November, Kingspan, a multibillion-euro Irish company, has been almost the sole focus of the inquiry being held into the Grenfell disaster.

Last week, on the 84th day of the Grenfell Tower inquiry in London, Adrian Pargeter, the director of technical, marketing and internal affairs at Irish building materials group Kingspan, sat in the witness box. Facing him was Richard Millett QC, lead counsel to the inquiry.

Millett was taking Pargeter through a series of WhatsApp messages from November 2016 between two Kingspan employees within Pargeter’s department, Aaron Chalmers and Peter Moss.

The texts painted an ugly ...