Russell and Carol - hayle and hearty

Terry Jupp - 1956 to 20 August 2002

Jupp was working with a 10kg mixture in a paint container when it unexpectedly ignited. The jury heard he was engulfed in a fireball, causing horrific injuries. The jury ruled that Jupp had been reassured by a risk assessment, by conversations with others, and his own experience of the chemicals involved. The scientist died of his injuries six days later. His family had criticised the eight-year wait they had endured to have an inquest and the secrecy surrounding the case.

Terry Jupp: ‘The Ministry of Defence has lost a highly experienced, loyal, dedicated scientist.’ Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA

Terry Jupp

Terry, a chemist who was conducting an experiment at a Ministry of Defence site at Newlands Battery in Shoeburyness, received 60 to 90 per cent burns to his body when the experiment went wrong. He was airlifted to Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford before being transferred to the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital burns unit. Terry died of septicaemia from his injuries on August 20.

Maurice Marshall who works at Fort Halstead for the Defence Science Technology Laboratory, is accused of causing Terry's death. The Government scientist is said to have ordered Terry to mix a 10kg charge of three chemicals, as part of joint British-American tests, but failed to warn him how dangerous it was.

Following an investigation by the Ministry of Defence Police and the Health and Safety Executive, Marshall was charged over his death. He appeared at the Old Bailey on September 2005 and pleaded not guilty to gross negligence manslaughter. His trial was due to start on 4 September 2006.

In September 2006 a new trial date was set for 16 April 2007 at the Old Bailey.

Charges against Marshall's colleague Robert Weighill were dropped because of a lack of evidence.

In March 2007 Mr Marshall was cleared at the Old Bailey of Terry's manslaughter.

Explaining the decision to drop the charges, Gareth Patterson, prosecuting said, 'Things have recently changed. Further information has recently come into the possession of the Crown Prosecution Service.

'That information involves further evidence involving the results of a series of tests carried out by one of the prosecution witnesses.'

Writing in the Observer on 18 March 2007 Antony Barnett said that it was understood Terry was involved in research looking at the composition of home-made fertiliser bombs used by Islamic terrorists.

Antony Barnett added that sources believe that both the United States and British military authorities were concerned that, should the criminal case continue, highly sensitive information could have been released on the nature of the experiments being conducted.

A CPS spokeswoman confirmed that the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, was involved in the decision not to continue with the case. But she added: 'The decision was taken by CPS lawyers based on new evidence that came to light. The decision not to continue the case was not down to a public interest argument.'

An HSE spokesman said, 'The expectation is the file will now be sent to HSE for us to review the evidence.'

The MoD has Crown immunity so cannot be prosecuted under health and safety legislation, although individual members of staff can be.

The HSE could call the MoD to a Crown censure hearing, if it felt its procedures were at fault.

In March 2008, nearly six years after Terry's death, there still had been no inquest, as the Coroner waited for the MoD to disclose information about the incident.

The Guardian newspaper reported, 'It has established that Terry was a member of a small team of British and US scientists making bombs from ingredients of the sort that terrorists could obtain. There is also evidence pointing to experiments to discover more about radiological dispersal devices - so-called dirty bombs - which use conventional explosives to scatter radioactive material.

'But such a project would have been controversial as the open-air experiment that ended in Jupp's death was conducted at a weapons testing centre on an island in the Thames estuary 10 miles from Southend, Essex.

'Meanwhile, the scientist's family despair of discovering what happened. "I feel these people high up want it swept under the carpet," said Jupp's mother Anne. "The death of one man is nothing to upset them too much, I suppose. But it does upset us."'