Shoddy stone fixing led to masonry falling 12m from a roof on a building in Edinburgh, crashing through a canopy and killing 26-year-old Christine Foster waiting on tables outside Ryan\'s Bar below, an enquiry heard in January.

The accident happened in 2000 (see NSS October 2000). In January, the enquiry at Edinburgh Sheriff Court into the fatal accident heard how a major renovation of the building in 1989 was to blame.

Having heard the evidence, the Procurator Fiscal, Elizabeth Paton, said: "There\'s a lot of evidence that the reasons for the fall of the stones was shoddy workmanship."

Evidence was given suggesting the stonework on the roof of the building in Hope Street may have been carried out by bricklayers in order to avoid delays that could have cost thousands of pounds in penalties.

The court heard from building expert witnesses about a number of faults relating to the fixing of the stones that fell.

These included the use of too much lead flashing, which caused the slabs to slip, and not enough mortar to bond the coping stones together. Neither were there any ties or dowels securing the stones.

Edinburgh City Council structural engineer George Findlay said: "The stones slipped on the lead. There should have been more mortar there. The mortar partially bedded the stones but it was insufficient. There was also an excessive amount of lead flashing, which made the stones slip."

Seven coping stones eventually toppled after the single skewput holding them in place twisted out of position.

At the time of the accident a city council spokesman told NSS that the council did have a programme of regular inspections of buildings in the city but that budgetary cuts had caused the programme to fall behind schedule.

Christine Foster was an Australian on a working holiday when the accident occurred. Two other people in the bar were taken to hospital as a result of the accident. Two more were treated on the scene for minor cuts.