A woman who was unable to come to terms with the deaths of her sisters took a fatal overdose.

Natalie Kensett, 30, who was battling depression, was found dead in her flat in Wickhurst Rise, Portslade, where she lived alone. Her sisters Lena, 25, and Margaret, 20, were killed in a car crash eight years ago. Her mother said Natalie never got over the shock.

Her sisters' deaths came just seven months after her cousin Jay Kensett, 16, was stabbed to death in Whitehawk, Brighton.

Natalie's father has been put on suicide watch in a mental hospital, while her mother Maggie struggles to come to terms with the quadruple tragedy.

Maggie said: "I'm all alone now. She was my rock - she was all I had left. We were just about getting through it together and now she's gone."

Maggie and her ex-husband, Len, lost a fourth child, Mark, in 1977 when he was four days old.

Len has been admitted to Mill View hospital in Hove. Natalie's son Lennie, 14, has been living with his grandmother since she was found on January 12. It is thought she overdosed on prescription pills. Maggie paid tribute to Natalie yesterday, her last surviving child.

She said: "She had such an aura about her - she really shone. She was such a beautiful, bright girl. She had a wonderful, cheeky, sense of humour.

"Whenever she came into a room you always knew she was there. She was life and soul of the party."

She said Natalie's fiancé, Mick Woods, was grief-stricken.

Family friend Sue Hunter said: "What has happened is an absolute tragedy."

Emma Whipp, who had been friends with all three sisters, said: "I feel like half of my life has been taken away from me."

Maggie said Natalie blamed herself for her sisters' deaths.

She was on holiday in Ibiza when they were killed on Brighton seafront as they travelled home from a night out and believed she could have stopped it if she had been there.

Natalie's mother said her daughter had been strong and supportive in the first two years after her sisters' deaths but had struggled to cope afterwards.

Natalie was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder and suffered extreme mood swings.

In December, Brighton and Hove City Council banned her from visiting her mother's house following complaints from neighbours. Mrs Kensett said Natalie used to visit her when she was at her most depressed and needed help.

The family has planned a spectacular funeral for Natalie on Monday and has invited anyone who knew her to join them for the ceremony. She will be carried in a leopard-skin coffin from the family home to Woodvale Crematorium, Lewes Road, Brighton, in a glass-sided carriage pulled by a white horse.

The procession will pass along Brighton seafront, stopping at the lamp-post where Margaret and Lena were killed.

Brighton and Hove City Council said: "We took out an order against Natalie at the request of her mother. This followed a huge amount of antisocial behaviour at all hours of the day and night which caused fear, alarm and distress to neighbours and was ultimately putting her mother's tenancy at risk.

"We also did our best to work with Natalie to help her address some of the issues that were contributing to her behaviour."