A gifted student jumped to her death days before she was due to start at one of the country's top universities, an inquest heard.

Alice McGovern, 18, of Punnett's Town, near Heathfield, was found at the bottom of 50ft cliffs at Crow Link, near Eastbourne.

A coroner yesterday ruled she had deliberately taken her own life after hearing she had left three suicide notes.

But her family claimed she had seemed happy before her death on October 5 and they could offer no explanation for her mysterious suicide.

Alice was a talented student who gained four A grades at A-level at St Leonards-Mayfield School for Girls where her mother Marion, 52, is deputy head.

She was about to begin a degree in chemistry at New College, Oxford.

Two unfinished notes, dated October 3, were found torn up in her bin while another lay undated on her pillow.

It read: "I'm so sorry, please forgive me xxx."

One of the notes in the bin read: "For all those who have loved me please don't feel responsible in any way for my death.

"Life simply isn't for me. I am not filled with grief as I write these words. I simply have no will to carry on living. The idea of death does not scare me."

The coroner returned a verdict of suicide but Alice's father, Chris McGovern, 54, said he was considering an appeal because there had been no indication she was unhappy before her death.

Alice's boyfriend, Alex Green, 19, from Tunbridge Wells, told the inquest: "She was one of the most upbeat, cheerful people I have ever known. I don't ever recall her being upset. I think she was looking forward to moving on and trying new things."

Coastguard Ross Greenhill told the inquest a clifftop footpath led directly from Alice's parked red Toyota Carina to a point almost directly above where her body was found.

Pathologist Keith Ramesar said he found multiple rib fractures and a large graze on Alice's chest which could have been caused by landing in water at high tide. The cause of death was drowning and there were no traces of drugs or alcohol.

East Sussex coroner Alan Craze recorded a verdict of suicide.

He said: "I feel very keenly the sense of devastation that Mr McGovern and his wife must have felt and continue to feel.

"One of the awful difficulties for her family is that there is no explanation in her notes of why she did what she did and that may well remain a mystery."