The children of a man who died after mistakenly drinking Paraquat poison have lost a bid to sue a local authority.

Former crane driver Andrew Vance suffered multi-organ failure after consuming the weedkiller which he wrongly thought was fruit juice.

A friend had collected Mr Vance's shopping along with another bag containing bottles with the poison in it and stored the items in the fridge at the victim's home.

Mr Vance, 66, of Coatbridge, in Lanarkshire, later fell ill and died on June 2 in 2004 after being taken to hospital.

His son Andrew Vance, 37, of Corsewall Street, and daughters Lorraine Gallagher, 44, of Dunbeth Court, both Coatbridge, and Yvonne Vance, 42, of Earnest Street, Arbroath, in Angus, raised an action for damages against North Lanarkshire Council.

Each sought £20,000 and £50,000 for the estate of their father in the case at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

A council storeman, William Bough, had removed some weed killer Dextrone X - which contains Paraquat - from his employer's premises.

He put it in former mineral water bottles and took them in a bag to Gartsherrie bowling club in Coatbridge, where Mr Vance worked as a doorman and stored them in his "dookit" for safekeeping.

Judge Lord Brailsford said: "The bag with the Volvic bottles containing the Dextrone X was inadvertently, and tragically, removed from the dookit and found its way into Mr Vance's fridge."

Mr Vance's family claimed the local authority had a duty to provide a system for the safe storage of the weed killer and were liable for the actions of its storeman.

But Lord Brailsford said he was satisfied the council had maintained a proper system for storing the herbicide."The only reason that system broke down was because of a wrongful act, a theft, of some of the material by Mr Bough," he said.

The judge said the employer could not have foreseen this because of his previous unblemished work record.