The fire crew attending Haut du Mont on the night before the explosion failed to detect the fatal leak because their monitors “were being used to detect a different gas”, a court heard.
At the ongoing trial yesterday, jurors were read out several agreed facts relating to the conviction of the States Employment Board on 25 September 2025 for two offences contrary to the Health and Safety at Work (Jersey) Law 1989.
Crown Advocate Paul Lee, prosecuting, stated that the pleas related to both the Emergency Services Control Centre and the Fire and Rescue Service failing to ensure the safety of its employees and members of the public.
He referred to a series of agreed failures in respect of the fire service and their role in the explosion which killed ten people on 10 December 2022.
Included among the failures was an “absence of a local policy” for the attendance of a gas leak, and the use of gas detection devices “which did not conform with national guidance as they were being used to detect a different gas”.
He explained: “The monitors used by the fire service at the time were Dräger gas detection devices – predominantly personal protection devices – designed to be worn near the breathing zone for it to accurately monitor what is being inhaled.
“According to the manufacturers, they can be used to detect a gas leak only with accessories attached. The devices used by the fire service had no accessories fitted.”
However, the court heard that the devices still would have “responded” to the Haut du Mont gas leak had they been correctly calibrated.
Crown Advocate Lee said that the gas devices used by the fire crew on 9 December were not calibrated to detect propane – the only gas currently in use in Jersey.
“I had no detection and no activation on my monitors”
John Lloyd, who was appointed as crew commander for the Jersey Fire and Rescue Service in 2015, led the crew that arrived to Haut du Mont in response to a report of “strong smell” of gas near the social housing block.
Giving evidence, he said that he could not remember when he “last looked” at the instructions for the Dräger gas detection devices.
Mr Lloyd was asked if he knew whether the monitors “needed to be calibrated” to propane to get a correct reading.
“I can’t…I don’t know,” he responded. “The gas monitors are calibrated annually, that is all I know.”
Advocate Rui Tremoceiro, representing Neil Armstrong, a former Island Energy network operations supervisor, asked the crew commander: “If you are attending a scene for an escape of a different gas, do you use the same monitors?”
“Yes, we would use the same monitors,” he confirmed.
He was then cross-examined on his team’s response to a call made by 14-year-old Pedro De Freitas reporting a “strong smell” of gas near Haut du Mont.
Advocate Tremoceiro asked him why his team took “less than a quarter of an hour” to conclude “that there as no gas and no reason for concern?”
“It was because I had no detection and no activation on my monitors”, Mr Lloyd responded.
Commissioner Andrew Oldland is presiding.
The trial continues.
