A man serving life for killing Sussex nurse Susan Annis has been kicked out of the medical profession.

Kevin Cobb was convicted last July of killing the "much loved" 31-year-old colleague after doping her with the rape drug midazolam at the Royal Brompton Hospital, in London.

Cobb's plan to sexually molest the nurse went tragically wrong when Miss Annis, who suffered from a heart condition, fell into a coma and died.

Cobb, 39, was yesterday banned from practising by the UK Central Council for Nursing for the "protection of the public".

The council heard Cobb had been refused leave to appeal against his convictions for the manslaughter and for three other attacks involving rape and administering stupefying drugs to women patients.

Dr Margaret Collingwood, council chairman, said: "His behaviour was despicable and strikes at the very heart of the relationship between the patient and the professional.

"The committee has decided to remove Cobb's name from the register with immediate effect."

Cobb, from Hampshire, was found guilty of killing bubbly and dedicated Crawley nurse Susan Annis after a six-week trial at the Old Bailey.

He laced his victim's cider one night while they were in the final week of a child-nursing course at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London in 1996.

For her parents, Audrey and David Annis, of Haywards Heath, the trial signalled the end of four years of struggling to come to terms with their daughter s death.

The couple had always questioned the circumstances of their daughter's death and were never able to reconcile the idea that it had been due to natural causes.

Miss Annis, a sister at Crawley Hospital, was greatly respected as a nurse and was on the course to help fulfil her dream of setting up a children's casualty unit at the hospital.

Following her death, nurse Amy Dobson took up Susan's role at the hospital and the children's unit was opened and dedicated to her memory in April, 1998.