A 35-year-old woman with a severe personality disorder died after jumping from a footbridge on to a motorway, an inquest heard.

Nicola Mansell, a dental nurse, of Northumberland Road, Shepway, Maidstone, died from head injuries on April 7 after jumping from the footbridge across the M20 at Wrotham.

The inquest into her death, held in Maidstone, was told that Miss Mansell had survived a fall from the same spot seven years earlier.

Her father, Glen Mansell, from Wrotham, said his daughter's behaviour was changeable. "She would go from happy and bubbly to depressed in a short space of time," he said. "She was obviously troubled."

In a statement read to the inquest her mother Jane Hopkinson, said Miss Mansell had suffered a possible nervous breakdown after a relationship ended and making a suicide bid with some pills.

Sue Howe, a community safety assistant with Maidstone Borough Council, said she had met Miss Mansell after neighbours contacted the council, concerned about her erratic behaviour.

Following a fire at Miss Mansell's flat in December 2003 - which she told several people she had started deliberately - she had carried on living there even though it was boarded up, smoke damaged and had no light nor electricity.

On March 26, she had accompanied Miss Mansell to court for a hearing into an interim Anti Social Behaviour Order. "She told me how bad she felt about it and the affect she had on her neighbours' lives," she said.

Miss Mansell was set to appear at court again on May 11, a few weeks after her death.

Gary Morley, community development worker with the Beacon Church, Shepway, who took her clothes, food and helped her with finances and shopping, said: "Towards the end, Nicola was making progress. I thought she was very sad but she did appear to be getting better and to be communicating."

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