THE gas company on trial over its role in the Haut du Mont explosion which killed ten people “chose to deviate” from its own operational procedures on the day before the disaster, a UK safety expert told jurors.
Crown Advocate Simon Thomas, prosecuting, previously told jurors that the explosion occurred because the three defendants failed to carry out a “crucial, basic and fundamental” test on pipework leading to Haut du Mont after reconnecting the gas supply on 9 December.
He described this test – referred to as both a “pressure” and “leakage” test – as the “one thing” that would have alerted the defendants to the fatal gas leak.
Martin Wayland, senior safety inspector with the UK Health and Safety Executive, confirmed to jurors yesterday that the test would have “informed” the network operations team, led by Neil Armstrong, that “gas had escaped”.
Advocate Mike Preston, representing Island Energy, put to the safety expert that Mr Armstrong had been given “clear instructions” by senior colleagues to conduct the test.
He referred jurors to a message sent by the company’s managing director Clive Doyle on 9 December that read: “Neil, James – when doing leakage test I suggest keeping it circa 70 -75mb (max network operating pressure) then FIM the connected mains and services”.
Despite failing to conduct the test, Mr Armstrong later texted his line manager James Cherry: “James, tested 75mbar 40 minutes, all good, reconnect, purged n back on.”
Advocate Preston asked the witness: “There’s no reasonable management system that can stop him from lying, is there?”
“No”, Mr Wayland said, later adding: “No system can combat that”.
The witness used the highway code to illustrate his point: “Everyone knows the rules, but people decide and make a conscious decision to move away from those rules.”
However, the safety expert insisted that the text sent from Mr Doyle on 9 December did not amount to a “step by step guide” and lacked procedural rigour.
He also said that the “75 millibar” test suggested by Mr Doyle did not “comply” with Island Energy’s own safety policies for pressure testing.
“It points to the fact that procedures are in place that the company operate to, [and] they chose on this occasion not to operate on those procedures, but to deviate from that.
“[The pressure test] wouldn’t have met the procedure within their own documents – but it would have served to provide information on whether that downstream system was sound or not.”
The defence lawyer argued that the key “failure” prior to the Haut du Mont explosion was therefore the failure, on behalf of the defendants, to carry out a pressure test.
“The immediate cause, clearly, was not doing the test,” Mr Wayland accepted. “However, when you examine the background to if the test should have been conducted, that would have formed part of the procedure that was written [beforehand].”
The safety expert previously told jurors that a “routine operation’, or RO, should have been prepared before the “decommissioning” to Haut du Mont work began on 9 December.
An RO, he explained, is a written plan setting out how the job should be carried out safely.
This document can often run in parallel to a “method statement”, a safety document that gives a step-by-step guide on how to complete a high-risk job safely.
Cross-examining Mr Wayland, Crown Advocate Thomas asked whether an RO – or method statement – might have helped root out a worker lying about conducting a pressure test.
“It is down to the personalities involved on the day,” the witness stated.
“Certainly, I would suggest that if you are following an RO, and you brief your team on that RO before that work is carried out, and you decide to step away from that – my expectation is that one of the other team members would question that decision making.
“But I would also expect team members to question that decision making on a non-routine operation when they are working normally.”
Earlier in the day, Advocate Preston had put to Mr Wayland that the network operations team should have been well-positioned to handle issues stemming from the Haut du Mont disconnection on 9 December.
“A loss of supply even such as this would be well within the capabilities and competencies of a trained and experience network team, wouldn’ it?”, he asked.
Mr Wayland responded: “If they considered what had gone on, and taken a step back and thought about it, and how they were going to manage that recommissioning, yes, I would agree it was within their competency to do that.
“But that is not what happened.”
Jersey Gas, which trades as Island Energy, are charged with two alleged breaches of the Health and Safety at Work (Jersey) Law 1989 in connection with the Haut du Mont blast on 10 December 2022.
Neil Armstrong (58), John Wright (60) and Lee Ward (59) are separately charged with unlawfully killing the ten victims of the explosion by gross negligence manslaughter.
Commissioner Andrew Oldland is presiding.
The trial continues.
