AN EXPERT witness used the help of his grandchildren to give evidence at an inquiry into the death of a schoolboy.

Jim Thomson was speaking at a Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) into the death of Ciaran Williamson, who was killed in Craigton Cemetery by a falling gravestone.

The eight-year-old boy had been playing with friends on May 26, 2015 when the 7ft stone, dubbed the Ross Memorial, fell on top of him.

He died instantly and painlessly, according to a pathologist.

Mr Thomson, who is the director of training firm Teleshore Ltd, told the inquiry he had asked his grandchildren, who are aged between eight and 11, to sit on a garden wall and try to push various objects.

The aim of his test was to try and figure out what weight children of the same age as those involved in the accident might be able to put on objects similar to the stone which killed Ciaran.

He said : “I was trying to establish the sort of loads that a child might push in relation to their body weight.

“I asked them, standing up, to push against the wall and then to push against an object which would move...It was Grandad in this case.

“I had them pushing against my hand and pushing against a wall while sitting.”

Mr Thomson also brought a force-measuring device to the court room and tested it out on a door frame and even Sheriff Ruxton’s bench to indicate how it worked.

Graveyard inspectors use the gadget, called a dynamometer, to test how much force is being applied to gravestones when they are safety checking them.

The director, whose firm trains graveyard inspectors, disagreed with a previous expert’s evidence that the stone should have been cordoned off if it had been inspected before the accident.

Mr Thomson said he would have “done a hand test” by pushing the stone to determine if it was safe, before making a decision on whether to section it off or not.

The inquiry also heard from Steve Wood, a structural engineer from firm David Narro Associates.

Mr Wood was asked to consider a range of scenarios where children were playing in the graveyard and if he thought the stone would have toppled in each of the circumstances.

These included children climbing on to, and beside, the stone and jumping from trees in front of it.

The scenarios were based on previous evidence from young children who had been present at the time Ciaran was killed.

Mr Wood said he thought that two boys climbing on the stone to get to nearby tree, and a boy climbing on the wall but coming into contact with the memorial, could have caused it to wobble and then fall over.

He also said he was unable to comment on whether three boys jumping from a tree bin front of the memorial would have caused it to topple, and he could not estimate how much force would have been applied to the stone in any of the circumstances.