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Warwickshire police last week completed the forensic examination of the Atherstone warehouse site amid disclosures that the cost of the investigation had reached GB pound 3.6 million so far.
The painstaking search of the site has taken four months and has been conducted with fire investigators and health and safety officials. As detective superintendent Ken Lawrence who is leading the investigation explained, more than 250 tonnes of debris has been removed for detailed forensic investigation. “We have deconstructed the building piece by piece in a tightly controlled manner in order to preserve any evidence that will assist us in determining the cause of the fire, where it started and how the firefighters came to lose their lives.”
He revealed how thousands of tons of twisted metal and other debris had to be cleared piece by piece by a specialist deconstruction team. Although the fire happened last November, investigators only had clearance to enter the site in January, but still had to carry out their work in metal cages, to guard against falling debris. Teams were frequently required to leave the building of high winds or changes in conditions threatened to destabilise it.
According to a Warwickshire police spokeswoman, all lines of enquiry are still being pursued in the investigation.