LOOKING back to the week of June 13, 2017, when the country was rocked by the horror of Grenfell fire, and the result of several investigations into the death of Hartlepool woman Angela Wrightson were published.

There were calls for a major investigation after at least 12 people died when a London tower block was destroyed by fire on June 14, 2017.

Many more were feared to be dead inside the wreckage of the 24-storey Grenfell Tower, in north Kensington, which was engulfed by flames in the early hours of the morning while residents slept in their homes.

People were trapped on upper floors – some holding babies out of windows and others jumping from their flats. Firefighters rescued 65 people.

Thirty-four remained in hospital, including 18 who were critically ill.

Questions were being asked about how the fire spread so rapidly through the block, which was refurbished last year at a cost of £8.6m.

A residents’ action group said its warnings about safety had fallen on “deaf ears”, while people who escaped complained there had been no fire alarm, with many relying on neighbours to wake them as the blaze spread.

Closer to home, investigations found that the torture and murder of a vulnerable woman by teenage girls could not have been predicted or prevented, despite the attackers and their victim being well known to social services.

Three serious case reviews, published in June 2017, into why alcoholic Angela Wrightson was battered to death in her Hartlepool home in 2014 concluded parental neglect of her 13 and 14-year-old killers as among the root causes.

The frail alcoholic, who weighed just six-and-a-half stone, was found dead in her own living room, which was splattered with her blood, on December 8, 2014.

She had been “befriended” by two girls, aged just 13 and 14, who used her to buy cider for them.

“Angie”, as she was known, had lived a difficult life, growing up in the care system, and was an easy target for those looking to prey on her vulnerabilities.

Her two troubled murderers were also in care: the older one in a residential home, the younger fostered. They had run off together before and regularly visited Angela at her home in Stephen Street, Hartlepool, which was described as a “hotspot for teenage drinking.”

Finally, pensioners were living in fear of being turfed out of their cherished homes after a social landlord unveiled plans to bulldoze their street to make way for private housing, in June 2017.

Elderly residents in Newton Aycliffe’s Clarence Green have vowed to fight proposals by housing provider Livin, which would see them relocated – to properties with potentially higher rents.

Livin, which manages 8,400 homes across County Durham and includes “sustaining strong communities” in its strategy, is proposing to demolish the bungalows to “improve its efficiency”.

It unveiled a blueprint to build homes for sale and relocate the tenants to apartments or bungalows on nearby Travellers Green, which was also due to be flattened.

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