Student friends died in experiment that went wrong

Two Edinburgh University students found dead in a hotel room were conducting a "complex scientific experiment" that went wrong, a new police investigation has ruled.

The parents of Robert Miller, 20, and James Robertson, 19, have been told by police that their deaths were accidental. The findings finally lay to rest speculation that they had died in a double suicide pact.

The bodies of the former school friends from Orkney were discovered by staff at the Ramada Jarvis Hotel in Ayr last June with syringes taped to their arms and hooked up to a laptop and pump containing chemicals.

An investigation has ruled their deaths were accidental and the Crown Office says the case is closed, removing the need for a fatal accident inquiry.

Yesterday, parents James and Christine Miller and Bill and Barbara Robertson issued a joint statement that said: "Jim and Robert were two young university students of immense talent and intellect and the police believe they were working on a complex scientific experiment that went very badly wrong.

"The exact details of what they were hoping to achieve, or prove, will never be known."