Aberfan's Lessons Unlearned: Those in Power Must Not Be Trusted and Accountability Still Fails Ordinary People
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/john-humphrys. "At Aberfan, I saw fathers digging for their missing children. And the lessons society should have learned, it hasn’t | John Humphrys | The Guardian." October 24, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
The author, who reported on Aberfan in 1966, argues that the disaster was entirely preventable and that officials ignored clear warnings and then escaped real punishment. He says the same thing happened with Grenfell Tower, so society hasn't learned, and powerful people shouldn't be trusted to protect ordinary people.
Conclusion
Society has not learned the lessons of Aberfan: those in power must not be trusted, and we still have not found a way to deliver real justice and accountability for ordinary people harmed by avoidable institutional failures.
Premises
- The Aberfan disaster, which killed 144 people, was not an unavoidable accident but the result of grotesque indifference by the National Coal Board and its chairman, Alfred Robens, who sited a massive tip above the village and school.
- The danger was known in advance: miners and their wives had repeatedly written to the NCB warning that the tip's location, on a spring-laden hillside directly above the village, was criminally reckless.
- Robens showed disregard for the victims, attending a university chancellor ceremony while parents dug for their children, and then denied knowledge and responsibility at the inquiry, even though he would have been briefed by his officials.
- Although the public inquiry rebuked Robens, nobody was charged or held criminally accountable for the deaths.
- The Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 killed 72 people in what the inquiry called 'entirely avoidable' deaths caused by systemic failures, deregulation and corporate dishonesty, and the inquiry said there is 'still a great deal to learn'.
- As with Aberfan, no one has faced charges for criminal negligence over Grenfell, suggesting the same pattern of unaccountable power persists.
Assumptions
- Aberfan and Grenfell are sufficiently similar (avoidable deaths caused by institutional negligence and ignored warnings) for the later disaster to show that lessons were not learned
- Criminal prosecution is the appropriate and necessary measure of accountability and justice
- A public inquiry's findings, without criminal charges, do not amount to adequate justice
- The failures of one particular set of officials can justify a general claim that those in power must not be trusted
- Absence of charges implies that someone deserved to be charged, rather than that evidence or law was insufficient
- The author's firsthand recollection and the accounts of residents accurately reflect the facts about prior warnings