PATIENTS at a mental health hospital were openly smoking cannabis, an inquest has been told.

Janet Müller had been detained at Mill View in March 2015 after being sectioned under the mental health act having suffered a psychotic episode.

She escaped from Caburn Ward at the Hove hospital and the following day was killed by Christoper Jeffrey-Shaw, who has since been jailed for 17 years for manslaughter.

The inquest into Janet’s death heard she had been heavily using skunk cannabis prior to her death – and that other patients were witnessed using the drug on Mill View’s wards.

Janet’s twin Selina Muller told the inquest Janet had smoked cannabis heavily before becoming mentally ill. Psychiatrists sectioned Janet believing she had suffered a “ first episode of psychosis – possibly drug induced”.

Selina added that when visiting Janet at Mill View she saw patients openly taking the drug in the garden – from which Janet escaped on March 12, 2015.

In a statement read to the inquest Selina said: “Janet didn’t drink alcohol much but she did smoke cannabis regularly.

“She was smoking daily and I felt it was affecting her mental health.

“She also used other drugs recreationally. I knew she had taken MDMA, cocaine and mushrooms.

“I would say her mental health deteriorated when she went to France for a week and had to stop smoking cannabis for a week.

“She started talking about herself very grandly. She became arrogant – even with me, which was very strange.

“She was not eating properly and just smoking cannabis and drinking coffee.”

Janet was taken to Mill View after police found her naked at Eastbourne Station.

Selina went to visit her twin. She said: “While I was there two other patients were smoking a joint in the garden. It was clearly accepted by the staff as they were not trying to hide it.

“One of the patients asked Janet if she wanted to smoke. She said no.

“It seemed like it was no big deal.

“Janet stopped and picked something up. She said she had found something on the floor in the corridor. She said it was some weed and she wanted to throw it away. I said did she want me to take it and get rid of it. She said yes. I remember feeling shocked it was so easy to smoke on the wards when there were so many unwell people there.”

Mill View consultant psychiatrist Kristina Antonova told the inquest that drug use was a particular problem among patients. She said: “Most often when patients go awol, women leave the wards because they go out to drink alcohol or take drugs.

She said Mill View had a zero tolerance to drugs but it was hard to enforce because visitors and voluntary patients could take substances in and refuse to be searched.

Dr Antonova said: “Drugs are a significant problem particularly in Brighton because the city has always had a history of drug abuse.

“If I saw anyone consuming drugs they would have been stopped immediately and searched and the drugs policy read out to them.”

Mill View doctor Jennifer Cooke said: “Janet said she had been using skunk cannabis at high levels for six months prior to her admission.”