THE 12 jurors sitting on the ongoing Haut du Mont trial have been told that they will likely retire “sometime next week” to consider their verdicts.
Neil Armstrong (58), John Wright (60) and Lee Ward (59) are charged with unlawfully killing the ten victims of the Haut du Mont explosion on 10 December 2022.
Jersey Gas, which trades as Island Energy, denies two alleged breaches of the Health and Safety at Work (Jersey) Law 1989.
The prosecution case against the four defendants – which involved 24 witnesses giving live evidence in the Royal Court’s temporary Jubilee Wharf courtroom – concluded on Monday.
Included in the list of witnesses were Island Energy’s former Head of Network Operations James Cherry and its former asset delivery manager Mark Wheeldon.
Neither the gas company’s managing director Clive Doyle nor its former chief executive Jo Cox were called to give evidence.
Lawyers representing the three Island Energy workers on trial over the Haut du Mont explosion yesterday told the court that their clients would not be giving live evidence as part of the defence case.
It was further heard that none of the three advocates will be calling “any other evidence” to support their closing submissions.
“That has a significant impact on the timescale of this trial,” Commissioner Andrew Oldham, presiding, told the jury: “It is likely, therefore, that you will be retiring to consider your verdict sometime next week.”
But Advocate Mike Preston, representing Island Energy, said that he would be calling evidence on behalf of the company in the form of an “expert” witness.
Chris Clarke, a retired chartered engineer who jurors were told has over 30 years’ experience within the UK energy industry, was called to the stand.
The court heard that the witness has a “long history” working with the Institution of Gas Engineers & Managers, which included a role directing standards for gas safety.
He explained that he joined British Gas in 1986 and continued working for Transco following the company’s restructuring in 1994.
Crown Advocate Simon Thomas, prosecuting, previously told jurors that Island Energy had relied on two different sets of safety procedures when the explosion occurred: one from 1997, and one from 2005.
“The procedures themselves deal with different tasks at different points,” he argued. “If an engineer is planning to decommission pipework in accordance with Island Energy procedures, the stages that he has to go through are not all found in one place.”
Advocate Preston put the Crown’s case to the witness: “Much criticism has been made of the fact that the procedures are in different documents. What do you say to that?”
Mr Clarke responded: “When I saw those two documents, they are actually quite familiar to me, because that is how we did it in the British Gas days, the Transco days.
“The work procedures contained in the document that my teams had gave them the sort instruction they needed to know about without overwhelming them with huge amounts of documents.
“Whereas as managers and staff, we had different procedures which gave us the information that we needed.”
He was asked about Island Energy employees’ lack of training in respect of Safe Control of Operations (SCO), an established set of procedures for controlling the risk that arises from individuals not carrying out work correctly.
“It appears from the evidence that they had not adopted the full suite of Safe Control of Operations,” Mr Clark accepted.
The trial continues.
