UK care home manager charged with murdering residents

Police investigating suspicious deaths at a care home in Somerset charged its co-manager with three counts of murder yesterday.

Registered nurse Rachel Baker, 44, was also charged with 11 counts of possessing controlled A and C class drugs.

Avon and Somerset Police charged her with the murders of Marion Alder, 79, Clara "Lucy" Cox, 97, and Mary "Francis" Hay, 85, at the Parkfields Residential Care Home in Butleigh.

Ms Baker ran the home with her 50-year-old husband, Lee, a chef. Both were also charged with perverting the course of justice.

The couple later appeared at South Somerset Magistrates' Court in Yeovil and were released on conditional bail until a hearing at Bristol Crown Court on February 6.

Ms Baker is accused of murdering the three women as a result of a dependency on prescription drugs, the Press Association reported.

Police exhumed the bodies of Ms Alder and two other former residents, Nellie "Mary" Pickford, 89, and Fred Green, 81, after arresting the couple in January 2007.

The Commission of Social Care Inspection closed the home in March 2007. It has since reopened under new management.

Around 350,000 elderly people are looked after in England's 18,500 care homes.