Care home boss on murder charge

Parkfields was closed by inspectors in March 2007

Police investigating the suspicious deaths of 12 residents at a Somerset care home have charged its co-manager with three counts of murder.

Rachel Baker has been charged in connection with the deaths of Francis Hay, Marion Alder and Lucy Cox.

She is also facing 11 counts of possessing a controlled drug.

Mrs Baker and her husband Leigh, who managed the Parkfields Residential Home, were questioned in 2007 over the deaths of four women and a man.

In September 2008 the pair were questioned over seven other deaths but police refused to give any more details.

The couple had managed the care home for more than a decade.

The pair, from Glastonbury, were first arrested following the death of resident Lucy Cox, 97, on New Year's Day.

Both were originally questioned on suspicion of murdering four women and one man at the home and drug possession.

Subsequently police exhumed the bodies of Nellie "Mary" Pickford, 89, Marion Alder, 79, and 81-year-old Fred Green.

The identity of the fifth suspected victim has not been revealed.

The Commission for Social Care Inspectorate (CSCI) closed The Parkfield Care Home, at Butleigh near Glastonbury - in March 2007.