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Before she fell from the top of the four-storey Armadale condominium near Novena last year, Briton Sarah Kate Royle had been on a drinking binge.

The 31-year-old, who was based in Australia, died of head injuries three days later at Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

At a coroner's inquiry yesterday, investigating officer Mohd Zhafrie Jalil pieced together what happened that night in June last year.

The account came mostly from photos in her camera, which was in her handbag found at the scene of the fall. It showed nearly 12 hours of continuous drinking.

The staff sergeant said Royle had arrived here on June 19 from Australia. It is believed she had worked in pubs and restaurants there for about a year.

Here, she checked into a backpackers' hostel at Banda Street in Chinatown. On the evening of June 23, she and another backpacker went to a nearby pub to watch the England football team take on Slovenia during the World Cup.

There, she met Lawrence Duckett, 33, and his friends. Both being Britons, they celebrated England's one-goal victory. There were many pictures of her and her new friends in the camera, but the pub they were at could not be identified.

These were followed by photographs of Royle and Duckett, regional engineer for Australian-based Skywest Airlines, high up on top of some scaffolding. She was an avid rock climber and had no fear of heights, the court heard.

At about 3 a.m., both left the pub and went to Chijmes for more drinks. State Coroner Imran Hamid said the pictures here showed "bottles and bottles and bottles of beer."

By 6 a.m., they were at the poolside of the Armadale condominium, where Duckett lived. He brought down a bottle of bourbon from his third-floor apartment, and they continued drinking.

However, their rowdiness led residents to tell them to pipe down. After that, for some unknown reason, Royle left the poolside area.

It is also not known how she got into a fourth-floor apartment at about 8 a.m.

The occupant told police that when she spotted Royle in the living room, the Briton dashed outside to the rooftop through the sliding glass window. The occupant did not run after her, and that was the last time Royle was seen alive.

The coroner said there was no evidence to indicate suicide. He also pointed out that she was never in Duckett's apartment, and he was on the ground floor looking for her when she fell.

The coroner also doubted if a 1.42m-tall wall that was blocking access to the ledge of the rooftop would have been a hindrance to Royle.

The coroner said one of two things could have happened: She could either have fallen off the building accidentally, or had lost her grip when she tried to climb down using awnings on each floor.

The coroner also noted that residents who saw her at the poolside, and the paramedics who attended to her, noticed that she was rather drunk.

No toxicology test was performed on her immediately after the fall as she had been injured severely, but Duckett's blood-alcohol level was 163mg, more than twice the 80mg prescribed limit for driving a vehicle.

Royle's sisters Johanna, 36, and Premsa, 33, flew in from West Yorkshire, England, to attend the inquiry. With them was Royle's fiance.

He declined comment, but the sisters told The Straits Times that the coroner's inquiry had answered all the questions they had about their sister's death.

Reprinted courtesy of Straits Times Indonesia. To subscribe to Straits Times Indonesia and/or the Jakarta Globe call 021 2553 5055.