The effective lifetime of the " B 0 s meson in the decay mode " B 0 s ! J=c f 0 ð980Þ is measured using 1:0 fb À1 of data collected in pp collisions at ffiffi ffi s p ¼ 7 TeV with the LHCb detector. The result is 1:700 AE 0:040 AE 0:026 ps, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. As the final state is CP-odd, and CP violation in this mode is measured to be small, the lifetime measurement can be translated into a measurement of the decay width of the heavy " B 0 s mass eigenstate, À H ¼ 0:588 AE 0:014 AE 0:009 ps À1 .