THE Haut du Mont explosion which killed ten Islanders was an “incident waiting to happen” and occurred because of work carried out “exceptionally badly” by three Island Energy employees on the day before the blast, the Royal Court has heard.
Neil Armstrong (58), John Wright (60) and Lee Ward (59) are accused of unlawfully killing the ten victims of the Haut du Mont explosion on Saturday 10 December 2022.
The three men, who worked together in the Network Operations team at Island energy, each deny ten counts of gross negligence manslaughter – one for each of the those who passed away following the blast.
Flanked by their legal representatives, the defendants appeared at the Royal Court yesterday for the beginning of a trial expected to last two months.
Jersey Gas, which trades as Island Energy, also denies two alleged breaches of the Health and Safety at Work (Jersey) Law 1989.
Advocate Simon Thomas, opening the case, told jurors that there is “no dispute” as to why the Haut du Mont explosion occurred.
“The reason that the explosion occurred was because gas had escaped from an open valve at the rear of the block that collapsed.
“The prosecution case is that the gas escaped because of work carried out on the gas pipes that supplied Haut du Mont on the previous day, Friday 9 December.”
He said that this work was carried out by the three defendants: with “network officer” Mr Armstrong serving as the supervisor to team leaders Mr Wright and Mr Ward.
The prosecutor told the jury that their work to cut off gas supply to the Haut du Mont flats – on the instruction of Andium Homes – was carried out “not just carelessly”, but “exceptionally badly”.
“So badly,” he continued, “that each can properly be said to be guilty of manslaughter.”
“The failure to understand the layout of the pipework was the first error”
Laying out the chronology of events which led up to the explosion, the prosecutor said that the first in a “series of mistakes” made by the defendants involved failing to establish the correct position of the gas pipe they were tasked to cut.
“What they did, the prosecution says, was to take a guess at the appropriate position without carrying out sufficient excavation to show what the pipework was in the ground.
“The failure to understand the layout of the pipework was the first error that Armstrong and his team made which had a profound effect on the events which were to follow on 9 December 2022”, he stated.
He said this misjudgement led to Mr Wright making the mistake of cutting the pipe on the morning of 9 December.
“It was sloppy, unsafe and cut corners,” Advocate Thomas said. “Although this sloppiness did not cause the explosion, it gives you an idea of the lack of care that was taken over the work that was being carried out.”
“This was not a procedure that should have been rushed, given the risks involved”
He explained that Island Energy soon received notice that the defendants’ error of judgement had led to the nearby St Helier Yacht Club being cut off from its gas supply from La Collette.
Realising their mistake, the team, led by Mr Armstrong, acted “on the basis there was an urgent need” to reconnect the Yacht Club’s gas supply – despite the fact, the prosecutor said, that this “was not a procedure that should be rushed, given the risks involved”.
With the gas supply reconnected, Advocate Thomas said it became “vitally important” for the team to ensure that there was “no possibility” of it now escaping from Haut du Mont or “indeed anywhere on the pipework”.
He said that Mr Armstrong went to the flats “between 2:30pm and 3:30pm that afternoon”, but “failed to ensure” that all the ‘Emergency Control Valves’ (ECVs) and plugs that prevented gas escaping from the gas cupboards were closed.
“The prosecution say that he may well have been distracted by dealing with other matters on the phone whilst he was up there,” Advocate Thomas added. “He left, we say, at least one valve open and at least one valve unplugged.”
Jurors were told that the valve left open and unplugged “could have been identified” if the three defendants “had carried out a crucial, basic and fundamental test on the pipework before restoring gas”.
Advocate Thomas described this test – called a pressure test – as “something that any competent gas engineer would be aware of”.
“He lied on two occasions saying that a test had been completed”
The court heard that Mr Wright told investigators following the explosion that his superior, Mr Armstrong, had been “panicking and anxious” to get the gas restored to the Yacht Club before 6pm.
“Mr Wright said that Mr Armstrong told him to forget about a pressure test and get the gas restored,” Advocate Thomas told the jury, “According to Mr Wright, Mr Armstrong said, “f*** the test, get it back on””.
He added that Mr Armstrong had texted one senior manager, who instructed him to perform the test, to say that it had been carried out – while also telling another manager that the test was completed.
“To put it bluntly, Mr Armstrong lied,” he said. “The pressure test was the one thing that would have alerted him and his team to the fact that there was an open valve at Haut du Mont.
“But he lied, saying it had been done, when it hadn’t.”
Due to the opened emergency control valve being left unplugged, gas immediately began “escaping” out to the rear of block H in the Haut du Mont set of flats, jurors were told.
“By the early hours of the morning, large quantities of the escaped gas had found its way from the gas meter cupboard into the flats at Block H where the residents were asleep”, he said.
The subsequent explosion, the prosecutor said, led to the deaths of ten Islanders.
“We will never know what triggered the explosion,” the prosecutor surmised. “It could have been an electrical spark, or someone lighting a match.
“What we do know is that the force of the explosion caused the whole building to collapse [and] nine of the residents died almost immediately.”
He told the jury that several Island Energy employees attending the scene the next morning “recalled hearing” Mr Armstrong “accept that the cause of the explosion was most likely his failure to ensure all the ECVs at Haut du Mont were closed”.
Advocate Thomas concluded that “all three defendants breached their duty” by introducing gas into a system “without conducting a pressure test to ensure there were no gas leaks”.
“Those failings were not simply careless,” he stated. “They were exceptionally negligent and should be properly regarded as criminal.”
“Mr Armstrong was in control and effectively marking his own homework”
Advocate Thomas told the jurors that the charges against Island Energy “arise out of the way in which it ran its operations”. He accused the gas company of running its business “in a manner that placed the health and safety of both members of the public and its own employees at risk”.
According to the prosecutor, the “lack of management control” and “lack of supervision” for its employees meant that the Haut du Mont explosion was an “incident waiting to happen”.
He told jurors that the company failed to put in controls “which are standard in the gas industry”, and operated using policies “that were inconsistent and lacking in detail”.
It was noted that there was “no independent supervisor” to hold Mr Armstrong to account on the 9 December, meaning that the defendant “was in control and effectively marking his own homework”.
The jury were also referred to several “significant opportunities” missed by the fire service and the emergency control room to prevent the explosion from occurring.
He said that the fire service attended Haut du Mont at 8.45pm on the evening of the blast and “spoke with members of the public who reported the smell of gas”, before taking the view “after a short period that [the gas] had dissipated”.
“The opportunity to evacuate the flats, which is what should have happened following a report of gas inside, was missed”, he noted.
However, he said that this “did not absolve” the three men from their criminal responsibility – adding that the “ultimate cause of the explosion” and “the ultimate cause of the deaths of those ten individuals” lay with the defendants.
Commissioner Andrew Oldham is presiding.
The trial continues.
