A mental health nurse is believed to have killed herself after being investigated for having sex with a patient.

The alarm was raised at the Trevor Gibbens Unit, in Hermitage Lane, Maidstone, which treats mentally ill criminals.

A reliable source said: "We think it involved more than one patient, but it was all kept very quiet. It has been hushed up."

A spokesman for the Kent and Medway NHS Social Care Partnership Trust, which runs the forensic services unit, confirmed it had been alerted to a "safeguarding concern".

"We took immediate action to safeguard patients and to carry out a thorough investigation.

"The member of staff has since sadly passed away and their death is now in the hands of the coroner. It would be inappropriate for us to comment further at this stage."

Nurse Tracey Edwards, 36, died weeks after the probe was launched in January last year.

She was by then a patient in the psychiatric wing of the Princess Royal University Hospital in Orpington.

Her death is being dealt with by the coroner of the Southern District of Greater London, Dr Roy Palmer, and an inquest is due to be held.

Trevor Gibbens Unit provides forensic mental health care for 62 patients over 18 – 47 men and 15 women - who are detained under the Mental Heath Act.