---
title: "Third Haut du Mont defendant faces possible retrial after hung jury"
url: https://www.nsfw.info/haut-du-mont-hung-jury-lee-ward-retrial/
published: 2026-10-22T12:00:49+00:00
modified: 2026-10-22T12:00:49+00:00
author: "Chief Editor"
categories: ["Crime"]
image: https://www.nsfw.info/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/haut-du-mont-hung-jury-lee-ward-retrial-1024x572.webp
summary: "The six-week Haut du Mont trial ended with a hung jury for gas worker Lee Ward, 59. Two colleagues and Island Energy were convicted the day before."
publisher: NSFW (https://www.nsfw.info)
---

# Third Haut du Mont defendant faces possible retrial after hung jury

**In brief:** A six-week trial over the deaths of ten people in the Haut du Mont explosion has ended with a hung jury for the final defendant, gas worker Lee Ward. Two colleagues and the company were convicted the previous day. The prosecution now has 14 days to decide whether to seek a retrial.

## Jury discharged after 28 hours of deliberation

The jury in the Haut du Mont trial was discharged just before 12.30pm on Thursday after failing to agree on ten counts of gross negligence manslaughter against Island Energy worker Lee Ward, aged 59, who denies all charges. The Jersey Evening Post reports that jurors deliberated for a total of 28 hours and three minutes without reaching either unanimous verdicts or the majority of ten out of twelve required by the court.

Commissioner Andrew Oldland, presiding, had issued a majority direction the previous day, lowering the threshold from unanimity in an attempt to break the deadlock. Jurors returned on Thursday morning after being sent home overnight, but remained unable to agree. Mr Ward was remanded on bail following the discharge. He has neither been convicted nor acquitted.

The prosecution now has 14 days to decide whether to seek a retrial. A retrial would mean yet another lengthy court process for the families of the ten victims, more than three years after the explosion itself.

## Two colleagues and the company convicted

The day before the hung jury, jurors unanimously found Neil Armstrong, 58, and John Wright, 60, guilty of ten counts of gross negligence manslaughter each. Both convictions relate to the explosion at Haut du Mont on 10 December 2022, in which ten people died. Armstrong and Wright were remanded in custody to await sentencing.

Jersey Gas, which trades as Island Energy, was also convicted of two health and safety offences relating to its duties towards employees and members of the public. Those verdicts followed 25 hours and eight minutes of deliberations, the Jersey Evening Post reports.

## Background: the Haut du Mont explosion

The explosion at Haut du Mont flats on 10 December 2022 killed ten people. The trial, which lasted more than six weeks, examined the conduct of Island Energy workers and the company itself in connection with that disaster. The scale of the tragedy, ten lives lost in a single incident, makes it one of the most serious criminal cases Jersey has seen in living memory.

The BBC reports that the hung jury outcome came less than 24 hours after the convictions of Armstrong and Wright, leaving the legal proceedings against all three individuals in markedly different positions: two men facing sentencing, one facing the possibility of a retrial, and families still waiting for full resolution.

## The NSFW Perspective

Ten families lost someone on a December morning in 2022, and more than three years later the courts have delivered two convictions, one corporate guilty verdict, and one outcome that resolves nothing at all. A hung jury is not an acquittal, but it is not closure either. The prosecution’s 14-day window to decide on a retrial will be watched closely: pursuing another lengthy trial carries costs and demands more of witnesses and victims’ families, but walking away leaves a significant question unanswered. Whatever the prosecution decides, the two men already convicted and the company found guilty will face a sentencing hearing that will be, for many in Jersey, the moment the full weight of this tragedy is finally measured in law.

*Source: [Jersey Evening Post](https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2026/10/22/haut-du-mont-trial-ends-with-jury-unable-to-reach-verdict-on-third-island-energy-worker), [BBC News](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6r7ym35gxedo), [Bailiwick Express](https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/news/haut-du-mont-trial-hung-jury-in-case-against-third-island-energy-worker)*