Vital maintenance checks on a set of broken points were abandoned only yards from where a train later derailed in an accident which killed a Glasgow woman.

An official report has found a track inspector walked off the railway a short distance from where he would have discovered critical track failures on February 18 this year, Network Rail said.

Five days later, a high-speed Virgin Pendolino train came off the rails in Grayrigg, Cumbria, leaving Margaret Masson, 84, from Cardonald, Glasgow, dead and 22 people injured.

In a highly critical report into its own systems of inspection and management, Network Rail revealed loose bolts were found on the Lambrigg 2B points more than six weeks before the crash.

They were replaced, but the cause of the problem was never investigated.

In later weeks, trains passing over the points dislodged the bolts again and caused the stretcher bars separating two sets of track to come under pressure.

As a result, the train smashed into the points at 95mph, throwing it from the track.

After the crash, one stretcher was found broken and another strewn further down the track.