BBC News Online: UK: Northern Ireland

Sentencing reserved in restaurant death

Ciara McGinley, 22, from Strabane, County Tyrone, died after collapsing in a toilet at the restaurant in Bradbury Place.

Miss McGinley, a languages student at Queen's University in Belfast, had been out celebrating the end of her final exams in June 1998.

Diamond Restaurants Ltd., trading as McDonald's, was facing charges brought by Health and Safety officers at Belfast Crown Court on Wednesday.

The victim was electrocuted after she touched live wires hanging from a hand dryer in the restaurant's toilet.

The court heard there had been three complaints about the state of the dryer by members of the public over the two weeks before the fatality.

One of these was made just hours before Miss McGinley's death.

The defence solicitor for the franchise holders said they did not know the dryer was faulty and had not been informed about the complaints.

He said the case was about a breakdown in communications which had resulted in ghastly consequences.

Lord Justice McCollum reserved sentencing until next week.