Thank you all very much indeed. Now the body of an 89-year-old woman is being exhumed by police tonight as they investigate the deaths of seven elderly people at a care home. In an unprecedented investigation by Avon and Somerset police, Nellie Mary Pickford's body is the first of three being exhumed sopostmortem examinations can be carried out. They were all residents to the care home in Somerset which was closed down after the death of 97-year-old woman on New Year's Day. The managers of the home were arrested and bailed after the death on suspicion of administering anoxious substance. Jane Dodge reports from Somerset.
Usually a place of rest far from it today at Glastonbury cemetery. At midnight police will exhume the body of Nellie Mary Pickford. Darkness, more discreet for what the police described as a drastic step. Mrs. Pickford died last July at the age of 89, there was no postmortem examination. It was assumed she died for natural causes.
It's very unusual. It's very different clearly seen, suspicious death we normally deal with, and yes, it's shocking, and as you come close to exhuming someone, it really does become quite horrifying.
Police are investigating the deaths of seven women, all of them residents at Parkfields care home in the village of Butleigh, neighbors who knew them are shocked by unfolding events.
I knew if I have been involved at all, you know, I enjoyed the meal, salad. I thought they were all very nice.
We are terribly upsetting, I mean we are really upset about it, and there is nothing we can do, we can just sit and wait.
The couple who run Parkfields are at the center of the police investigation. Rachel and Leigh Baker have been arrested and questioned on suspicion of administering a noxious substance to one of the oldest residents at the home. Neither has been charged and both have been released on police bail. It was the death of that elderly resident which triggered this current investigation.
On the 1st of January 97-year-old Lucy Cox died, a postmortem found her death suspicious. On the 4th of January after receiving a tip-off thought to be from a member of staff, the Commission for Social Care Inspection or CSCI alerted the police. On the 5th of January, Rachel Baker was arrested, her husband Leigh was arrested two days later. On the 24th of January, CSCI held an unannounced inspection. And on the 16th of March, Parkfields was closed, its residents moved elsewhere.
When we conducted our inspection on, at the end of January, we found it to be a home where, we had serious concerns. Poor provision and poor standards of care affect people's lives, affect the residents' lives.
One of the concerns of the lack of records kept of meditation given to residents, echoing that the police are understood to be concentrating their inquiries on whether there was a misuse of prescribed drugs, two other bodies will be exhumed in the next few weeks, thetraumafor relatives and friends far from over.
Jane Dodge there, now the...
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1.postmortem examination:【医】尸体剖检
2.noxious substance:【法】有害物
trauma:n. a mental state of extreme shock caused by a very frightening or unpleasant experience
