Pascal Blasio was serving a 20 year prison sentence for engineering the gas explosion which injured dozens of people in the Wirral town
A business man who injured dozens of people by engineering a gas explosion in New Ferry has died in prison. Pascal Blasio tampered with a gas valve in his failing furniture showroom, “Home in Style” on Bebington Road in New Ferry, leading to the “colossal” blast on March 25, 2017.
The explosion, which destroyed or damaged around 63 properties and injured 81 people, was described by Wirral Council as the worst disaster the town had faced in peace-time. Over two and a half years after the disaster, and following a retrial, a jury reached unanimous guilty verdicts on charges of causing an explosion likely to endanger life and fraud by false representation.
Blasio was locked up for 20 years for his crimes. But the ECHO can now confirm Blasio died in prison last month – less than seven years after he was sentenced.
According to the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO), which investigates all deaths in custody, Blasio died at category C prison HMP Rochester on February 28 this year, aged 64. The ECHO has approached the PPO for further comment.
A Prison Service spokesperson said: “HMP Rochester prisoner Pascal Blasio died on 28 February 2026. As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will investigate.”
Granddad Blasio, most recently of Gillingham in Kent, previously criticised the accusations against him as a “witch hunt”. During his trial he maintained: “I’m innocent. I’ve done nothing wrong. He said he felt sorry for everyone affected but added: “I am a victim as well and I am being hounded. My whole life has been completely demolished.”
Following his sentencing his wife, Sonia Robinson-Blasio, maintained his claims of innocence. Posting on X, formerly known as Twitter, earlier this month, she said: “My husband lost his fight to cancer. I can’t tell you how devastated I am.
“Seven years of his life taken from him spent in prison, incarcerated [as] an innocent man. I will never stop fighting to clear his name. It is disgraceful what my husband has gone through.”
She added: “Losing my husband to an injustice system was one thing and then to lose him again to cancer has destroyed me. I would never forgive the justice system for the injustice it done (sic) to my husband, it destroyed him and me. Injustice is not justice. It’s evil.”
Liverpool Crown Court heard Blasio’s business was on the verge of bankruptcy at the time of the blast. The court was told the explosion followed Blasio opening a valve in his shop to release gas and switching on an electric fire.
The jury was told the aftermath of the explosion was “one of complete and utter devastation – one almost apocalyptic”. The fact no-one died was “truly a miracle”, the court heard.
But some of the victims received devastating injuries, including a 21-year-old man who suffered a “life-changing” brain injury while sitting at a bus stop. Judge Thomas Teague KC, sentencing, told Blasio he left “anyone who happened to be in the immediate vicinity, at the time of the inevitable explosion, to their fate”.
Describing the crime as “carefully planned,” the judge said: “It was essential to your purpose that the entire contents of the shop should be utterly destroyed. That is because nothing less would have resulted in an indemnity of the size you needed to secure, and, in any case, partial destruction would have exposed the fact that you had emptied the showroom beforehand of most of the stock for the loss of which you intended to claim….
“Your scheme could not succeed without obliterating this large building – including the performing arts school on the floor above – and, in the process, seriously damaging surrounding properties and exposing large numbers of people to the risk of death or severe injury.”
And addressing Blasio’s repeated denials of guilt, the judge added: “During your trial, with the dishonest help of your wife and son, you had the hypocrisy to portray yourself as a victim of these events. You have shown no remorse or concern for anyone but yourself. You have exhibited human selfishness in an almost chemically pure state.”
At a separate hearing the company who supplied the gas to the property, Contract Natural Gas (CNG), pleaded guilty to an offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. CNG were fined a total of £320,000 and ordered to pay £50,000 towards the prosecution costs.
The ECHO reported in August last year that the first people had moved into new homes in the area flattened by the blast as part of the multi-million pound redevelopment.
