Gas firm guilty of safety breaches after explosion

A gas company has been found guilty of breaching health and safety law after an explosion in a family home in 2024.

Island Energy was charged for failing to ensure the health and safety of people not in its employment, including the public.

The five-day trial at Jersey's Royal Court followed an investigation by the Health and Safety Inspectorate into the explosion at the property on Le Mont Pinel on 26 June 2024.

The case concluded in June 2026 but the media was unable to report any details until the end of a separate trial against the company for another explosion in 2022 which killed 10 people.

The verdict was delivered on the second anniversary of the 2024 explosion.

During the trial, the court heard how residents Lawrence and Cynthia Musikavanhu were sat in their lounge when there was an explosion inside their home at about 22:50.

The prosecution described how Cynthia was sitting on the sofa, using her phone, when "everything went dark".

She did not know what was happening until she saw her husband and the damage to the wall behind him.

Lawrence only remembered being handed a torch by their neighbour then going to check on their children who were asleep in bedrooms upstairs.

The couple and their children were subsequently rescued by emergency services.

Lawrence and Cynthia were admitted to hospital for 11 days with several injuries, with Lawrence requiring ankle surgery. Their children were not injured.

The court heard about the "destruction and damage" caused by the explosion, including pieces of laminate flooring being projected into the ceiling and the front facade of the property collapsing in the early hours.

The couple and their neighbours at Elizabeth Villas were in court for the duration of the trial.

The court heard the explosion was caused by a gas leak from a corroded steel service pipe running inside the property.

The pipe was redundant because the house had its gas meter removed in December 2021 but was still connected to the mains supply, the trial heard.

Prosecutors argued although the corrosion was not the fault of the gas company, and the pipe may have corroded at any time, Island Energy did not take all reasonable steps to disconnect the service pipe by the time of the explosion.

This was despite the company setting itself a target to disconnect service pipes within a year of the meter being removed.

Prosecuting, Advocate Paul Lee said the explosion at Elizabeth Villas "was not a minor incident".

"It could very easily have been fatal to the occupants... sat downstairs as the floor beneath them exploded... from gas in a pipe that should not have been there," he said.

He said Island Energy "stepped over safety... repeatedly over a significant period of time".

The jurats found the company guilty on the basis it "failed to carry out a procedure they themselves had set up".

The court also heard the company identified the failure of redundant service pipes as the highest health and safety risk to the organisation in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

In 2024, it launched a project to identify all properties where a gas meter had been removed but the service pipe had not yet been cut off and it employed contractors from the UK to reduce the backlog, the court heard.

Representing Island Energy, Advocate Mike Preston cited the impacts of the Covid pandemic and the Haut du Mont explosion in 2022 on resourcing level and workload as mitigating factors.

He argued the company was making progress on disconnecting redundant services but the impact of the Haut du Mont explosion "changed everything", affecting the company's ability to deal with operations.

He said the company conceded it was not perfect but maintained it did everything possible to ensure safety, adding the law "does not require safety guaranteed at all costs".

Follow BBC Jersey on X and Facebook. Send your story ideas to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk.