A coroner says the suicide of a promising university student might have been prevented if emergency doctors had access to her medical records.

Alan Craze, sitting at Eastbourne Magistrates Court, made his comments during an inquest into the death of Hina Shah, 25, who drove her car off cliffs at Beachy Head, near Eastbourne last October.

She died the day after being sent home by a doctor and social worker.

Third-year civil engineering student, of Adelaide Crescent, Hove, had been taken into police custody at Eastbourne station on October 24 after being found in a distressed state at Beachy Head.

PC Bernard Hunt, based at Eastbourne, told the court how he had been called to the cliff after reports of two cars near the edge at around 7.30pm.

He said Miss Shah seemed very upset and he took her to the police station for her own safety.

The court heard social worker Peter George and GP Robert Sparks assessed her before deciding she was well enough to go home and did not need to be seen by a psychiatrist or detained overnight.

Dr Sparks said when he had asked her if she had any history of mental illness and self-harm she had said no, something he knew now had been a lie.

He said: "With the gift of hindsight, certainly with the knowledge of her psychiatric history and incidents of self-harm, that decision would have been different."

Recording a verdict of suicide, Mr Craze said he would be writing to the Secretary of State for Health to recommend allowing assessment teams access to medical records.