A retired Court of Appeal judge who was once accused of “social cleansing” has been appointed to lead the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower tragedy.
Sir Martin Moore-Bick, 70, who left the bench last December, was criticized in a 2014 case after allowing a London council to rehouse a single mother with five children 50 miles away—a decision that was later overturned by the Supreme Court. After the initial ruling, Hodge Jones & Allen, the law firm representing the family, said that the judgment would “give the green light for councils to engage in social cleansing of the poor on a mass scale.” Moore-Bick is widely respected within the legal profession, however, and was recommended for the role by the Lord Chief Justice, according to the British newspaper The Telegraph.
