THERE was always something unsatisfactory about the response of the Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust in the aftermath of the terrible killing of Janet Muller.

Let us remember that student Janet died in the most horrible manner imaginable, in the boot of a burning car.

Janet had serious mental health problems that led her to be sectioned and treated at the Mill View Hospital in Hove.

But on the day she disappeared she had earlier simply walked out of the front door of the unit until being found and brought back.

That very night she climbed over a garden fence and vanished for the last time. The hospital knew its fence was a problem because it had already put in a planning application for a taller one. Sadly it was too late for Janet.

Last week the trust’s deputy managing director Michael Mergler ruled out giving the public details of an internal review, insisting lessons would be learned.

We do not know what procedures have been changed to prevent such incidents in future.

Now The Argus reveals an email from a governor of the trust in which she raises serious concerns about the care Janet received and laments that “yet another life has been lost” at Mill View.

The newspaper also reports there have been four other deaths of women under the care of the hospital in the last four years, including suicide. No one suggests the care of patients with a serious mental illness is easy.

But the absence of a convincing response to Janet’s death and the existence of other cases which raise questions calls for a thorough inquiry into Mill View. And it is in the public interest that it is as transparent as possible.