Pascal Blasio case: "My husband was wrongfully convicted of causing a gas explosion and given a 20-year sentence"

Sonia Robinson Blasio and Paul Blasio

My husband’s dream became his nightmare: a 20-year sentence for crime he didn’t commit. He is now dying of cancer six years into his sentence.

On the 25th of March 2017 at approximately 9:15pm, a Saturday night - always date night - our phone started going mad. First Pascal, my husband, took the call from silent partner Graham who said their shop had blown up. My husband said “stop fucking joking”, but then my family started calling me and said the same thing.

I had had a glass of wine so I couldn’t drive. We made our way up to New Ferry, Merseyside but couldn’t get all the way to the shop, so walked around the back of Iceland where it was all sectioned off. Nobody knew at this point what had happened: we did ask several police and waited for some time but found out nothing. As you can imagine, we were destroyed, devastated to think that our business could’ve been destroyed when we were told it was a gas explosion. We didn’t think it was our shop as we didn’t have gas in the building. We were told when we took the premises on that it was run from electricity.

The next morning Graham drove us to New Ferry so we could find out what had happened. We were interviewed by the Police and told that it had been a gas explosion. In the days and weeks following my husband was called a few times and then arrested. We couldn’t believe it. Our house was raided by the police, and I was made to sit down while they went through every single item in my house. I didn’t know what was going on. I wasn’t allowed to move without someone being with me. They took 100 items from my house which I have never had returned - some of them very personal to me.

Apparently a lever that was in the building had been moved slightly. The implication was that my husband had moved it days before the explosion. There was a smell of gas and the gas company did come out to investigate but found nothing; New Ferry always had a smell of gas and the gas company was always being called out. We were told that there was a gas pipe in the disabled toilets located in a sealed box - I used to put the toilet papers on top of this, but didn’t know what was in it as I didn’t need to.

I couldn’t go back to my home. I had to stay with my sister because the local Echo had put my front door and details all over the paper so people knew where I lived, and I was getting hate notes.

The first trial was about the gas explosion. Before its commencement, Contract Natural Gas (CNG) pleaded guilty to an offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 by failing to ensure that gas supply pipes were disconnected. The company was fined £320,000 and ordered to pay £50,000 towards the prosecution costs. We were surprised that Pascal was on trial on his own and that Graham was not charged. They said it was because his phone put him where he said he was. Our phone also put us where we said we were but it didn’t make any difference.

Why couldn’t or didn't they call him in? He worked with us. It didn’t make any sense. We also asked if the gas engineer could be called in for questioning, but the judge said it wouldn’t be in anyone’s interest. Why not? We were also told we weren’t allowed to say anything in the first trial regarding the gas company being fined and paying half the court costs, so nobody knew about this until the second trial. There is so much more that I need to say, so many other details I haven’t said that need to be said. The jury could make no decision so it was adjourned for a second trial.

The second trial was completely different. The approach was the insurance claim - but we were bullied in the courtroom by the residents. I approached the ushers. They said that it was a sensitive case - I thought witnesses were supposed to be protected, but I wasn’t. I was bullied by the CPS, so was my family, but we still wanted to be allowed to bring the gas company in as witnesses, or Graham in the second trial.

The judge summed up that we were on the verge of bankruptcy. I don’t understand this. We had two properties, with no outstanding bills with the houses or the shop. I was working - it made no sense when my husband was sentenced. My family managed to get into the courtroom for the first time and sat in the front row. The New Ferry community came into the court and said they wouldn’t sit next to me (not in those words).

The Crown Prosecutor stood over me, looking down, and said to them they could sit in where the jury sits, where they could watch my husband‘s face being sentenced and watch my face when being sentenced. He also said to them to make sure to say it was like a terrorist situation - it was like he was reading from a template. This is how the judge managed to give my husband a 20-year sentence: basically they had him down as a terrorist. There is so much more that I can say, so much more evidence that they didn’t use.

They didn’t want to use anything that would have helped my husband: he was used as a scapegoat. He had nothing whatsoever to do with this explosion - a witness that worked in the Penny pub took the stand at the second trial, saying that he smelled gas coming from his building, and when they located it a pipe had a massive hole in it. All the gas pipes in this area are old, he said to the courtroom, such that it could have been him standing on trial.

This was a gas explosion pure and simple, like so many other gas explosions, and there have been many because I now follow them. I will not rest until I clear my husband’s name - he is dying and he should be at home.

By Sonia Robinson Blasio

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