A coroner has questioned police methods in detaining mentally ill people after a woman died in custody.

Kerena Thornton, 45, of the Porcupine Cafe in Sydney Street, Brighton, died of a brain haemorrhage when she fell and banged her head in a custody centre cell.

Yesterday, a jury recorded a verdict of accidental death at a Brighton inquest.

But Brighton and Hove coroner Veronica Hamilton Deeley said she would be writing reports about whether a custody centre is a suitable place to keep people with mental health problems.

The coroner asked: "Should custody assistants be in a position where they are effectively needing to make judgements about medical matters?"

The centre at Hollingbury Industrial Estate in Brighton is a designated "place of safety" for anyone detained under the Mental Health Act as posing a danger to themselves or others.

Mrs Thornton was taken there by police on April 27 after smashing the glass door of her cafe and behaving irrationally.

She had been drinking up to a bottle of wine a day since her father's death in 2003.

The inquest was told severe liver failure was affecting her brain function, a fact unknown to the officers who detained her.

Her cirrhosis had left her frail and yellow-skinned and her wrists were too thin for the handcuffs they tried to use.

At the centre, run jointly by Sussex Police and security firm Reliance, she was placed in a cell for vulnerable detainees and flagged as a Grade 2 risk in need of urgent medical attention.

She fell and banged her head an hour and a half later with a doctor minutes away from cell.

She was taken to hospital but died the next day.

The inquest revealed discrepancies between the way custody staff and doctors interpreted the risk grading system.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission investigated Mrs Thornton's death and found no evidence of any officer or member of staff acting inappropriately or committing any offences.