A nurse from Sussex died after being drugged by a male colleague who planned to rape her, a court heard.

Susan Annis, 31, was plied with anaesthetic drug Midazolam by 38-year-old Kevin Cobb, the Old Bailey was told yesterday. Cobb went on to drug three hospital patients while treating them, raping two, it was claimed. Cobb denies the manslaughter of Miss Annis and a further charge of administering drugs with intent to rape.

Miss Annis was a nurse at Crawley Hospital and lived in Colwell Road, Haywards Heath.

She attended a course on child nursing at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London in November 1996, in which Cobb was also taking part.

Both finished work at about 8.l5pm and, hungry, went out for a takeaway pizza or pasta, returning to Cobb's room opposite Miss Annis's. Cobb claims she drank three cans of cider before falling asleep on the bed. He woke her after 30 minutes and she returned to her room.

Victor Temple QC, prosecuting, said Cobb had secretly slipped the drug into her cider before she passed out. Miss Annis, who had a condition which made her heartbeat race, was found dead in the early hours of the next morning in her own room.

The cause of her death was inconclusive - but a little over two years later, Cobb was allegedly seen sexually assaulting a woman in St Peter's Hospital, Chertsey, Surrey. Mr Temple said two other women were later traced who, the prosecution say, were also drugged with the anaesthetic Midazolam in order to be sexually abused by Cobb in the hospital's A&E department.

Mr Temple said Cobb, of Michaelmas Close, Yately, was married to a general practitioner and had been a nurse at St Peter's for many years. Mr Temple told the jury: "This defendant had secretly introduced Midazolam into Miss Annis's cider in anticipation of her being comatose and sexual assault in the shape of rape or indecent assault. But before he could carry out that intention she suffered an adverse reaction to the drug with fatal consequences."

The inquiry was reopened after Cobb's arrest on January 12, last year, after a 33-year-old woman complained she had been raped by him. Mr Temple said: "This defendant carried out a systematic course of conduct, abusing his position of trust towards patients and colleagues."

The trial continues.

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