Staff lacked necessary safety training, court hears

A former head of department at Island Energy handed in his notice in the year of an explosion because no workers had up-to-date safe control of operations training (SCO), Jersey's Royal Court has heard.

James Cherry was off-island when an explosion occurred at Haut du Mont on 10 December 2022, killing 10 people.

The residents who died as a result were Peter Bowler, 72, Billy Marsden, 62, Derek Ellis, 61, Sylvia Ellis, 73, Ken Ralph, 72, Jane Ralph, 71, Romeu De Almeida, 67, Louise De Almeida, 64, Raymond Brown, 71, and Kathy McGinness, 73.

Gas workers Neil Armstrong, John Wright and Lee Ward deny 10 counts of gross negligence manslaughter. Island Energy has pleaded not guilty in a combined health and safety case.

Cherry, the former head of network operations and asset management, said staff including the three defendants did not have their up to date or any SCO training from 2021, which he said was "a fundamental part of doing their jobs properly".

The court heard this training was needed to write a set of instructions gas engineers would use when doing a routine operation. Work to disconnect the gas supply at Haut du Mont was considered one.

Cherry said he had submitted budgets to send staff on SCO training courses prior to the explosion in 2022 but said training did not go ahead because of financial issues.

"It was getting frustrating, budgets were submitted for other individuals to do their training, but it was never carried out," he said.

Cherry told the court he was annoyed and "I put my notice in, I was ready to leave" because of the lack of SCO training and because of a previous incident in December 2021 which he reported to HR and said nothing had been done about it.

He said that the company then approved training only after the explosion, and Cherry said he was told to get it done "as soon as possible" and to get any additional support from the UK over in terms of staffing.

Cherry said he "100%" regretted his decision not to leave when continuing in his role as opposed to working his notice period which was set for mid-2022.

He added he particularly regretted not leaving after finding out one of the victims of the explosion was a close friend.

The case continues.

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