Haut Du Mont Trial: Gas works were 'sloppy, unsafe, and cut corners', allege prosecutors

A jury has heard claims the gas work undertaken in the area around Haut Du Mont on the day before a fatal explosion four years ago was rushed, based on 'guesswork', and 'sloppy'.

On the opening day of a Royal Court trial of three former gas company engineers accused of gross negligence manslaughter over the deaths of 10 people in a blast on Pier Road, Crown Advocate Simon Thomas told the court that their work on the gas network leading up to the explosion on 10 December 2022 was 'sloppy, unsafe and cut corners.’

Also on trial is gas supplier Island Energy, which is facing two charges under the Health and Safety Law of failing to ensure public safety. 

As part of phasing out gas in Andium properties, Supervisor Neil Armstrong (58) and Team Leaders Lee Ward (59), and John Wright (60) were carrying out works as employees of Island Energy, around Haut Du Mont on 9 December. They each deny ten counts of gross negligence manslaughter.

No properties in Haut Du Mont were using gas in 2022, but gas was still flowing up to the pipes, stoppered by Emergency Control Valves, and plugs.

The prosecution says the explosion was caused by gas that had escaped from an open valve to the rear of the block that collapsed.

Read: Haut du Mont trial: Explosion 'an incident waiting to happen'

Haut Du Mont Flats (from animation presented to the jury in court)

The court was told that, in the decommissioning process, Mr Armstrong and Mr Wright cut pipework buried beneath the pavement on Commercial Buildings ‘in the wrong place’, taking a ‘guess’ without ‘sufficient excavation’.

At around midday, the nearby St Helier Yacht Club reported it had lost its gas supply.

Crown Advocate Thomas said that a loss of gas is a 'significant event' and no gas 'should be put back into the network until the reason has been found out.'

Instead, it is alleged Mr Armstrong felt pressured to reinstate gas to the Yacht Club for the evening. Mr Ward arrived at around 4pm to assist. 

The jury heard that, due to this sense of urgency, no Pressure Test was carried out. That is a test to ensure there are no leaks on a network, before putting the gas back into it.

It is alleged Mr Wright was told by Mr Armstrong, who was ‘panicked and anxious’ to ‘f*** the test; get it (the gas) back on', despite two Senior Managers instructing him to do a test.

Crown Advocate Thomas also alleges Mr Armstrong lied to his bosses on two occasions that the test had been carried out. 

The jury was told that this was the 'one thing’ that would have alerted Mr Armstrong and his team to an open Emergency Control Valve releasing gas.

They were also told that Mr Armstrong had attended Haut Du Mont between 2.30 and 3.30pm to ensure all the valves and plugs were closed.

He is alleged to have been distracted by dealing with other matters on his phone and ‘left at least one valve open and unplugged'.

Gas was re-introduced to the system with all three men aware that no pressure test had been carried out, and 'by the early hours of the morning, large quantities of the gas had escaped from the open valve into the block of flats' at Haut Du Mont, Crown Advocate Thomas said.

A spark just before 4am ignited the gas that had filled the flats, and immediately exploded the building. 

Raymond Brown, Louise de Almeida, Romeu de Almeida, Sylvia Ellis, Derek Ellis, Kenneth Ralph, Jane Ralph, Peter Bowler and William Marsden, immediately lost their lives after the fatal blast. Kathleen McGinness died in hospital on Christmas Day.

The prosecution said that Island Energy's failings ‘arise out of the way that it ran its operations’, alleging they are wider than just the events of 9 and 10 December 2022.

The gas supplier is accused on a lack of management control and supervision, run in a manner that placed the public and its own employees at risk, with policies that were 'not up to industry standard'.

Crown Advocate Thomas said that, in the events leading up to the incident, there were ‘inaccuracies in maps’ given to the workers, and also noted that certain things should be ‘built into the knowledge’ of local workers.

He said that ‘work as significant as this’ should have at least a ‘method statement’.

Instead, he said, what was given ‘hardly gives a worker a great deal of indication as to how their work should be carried out.’

The prosecution alleges that, amongst other failings, the company later dispatched an inexperienced employee who had not been recently trained to investigate the report of the smell of gas. 

Earlier in the day, the judge, Commissioner John Saunders told the jury: ‘It is your collective view that will determine the verdicts."

The trial, which could last 12 weeks, continues on Wednesday with the prosecutor continuing to outline the case against the defendants, who all deny wrongdoing.