A Hong Kong student fell to her death from the roof of an English boarding school where she had climbed to smoke a cigarette, an inquest in London has heard.
Rosalina Thomas, 19, had won a place at London University to read medical chemistry. She fell more than 12 metres to the ground at Berkhamsted Collegiate School in Hertfordshire, north of London.
The inquest was told girls regularly unscrewed a third-floor window and crept on to the roof to smoke.
The window catch would be closed at the end of the night so that staff at the school, where smoking is banned, would not discover the girls' secret exit route to the roof.
Adinda Ivens, a fellow pupil at the school, said she had spoken to Thomas only minutes before the accident.
'She came into our room. She asked if anyone was on the roof,' Ms Ivens said. 'She asked if she could have a cigarette and she put some money down on the table for a packet of cigarettes.'
