Third Exhumation In Care Home Deaths Probe

A third body is to be exhumed by police investigating seven suspicious deaths at a care home in Somerset. Fred Green, 81, who is buried at Kingweston Cemetery, had been resident at Parkfields home in Butleigh, near Glastonbury, which was closed in March.

Last month the bodies of Nellie Mary Pickford, 89, and Marion Alder, 79, were taken for examination. Preparations started on Tuesday with the exhumation taking place in the early hours of Wednesday. The body will be reburied privately on Thursday.

Mr Green was born in Keinton Mandeville and moved to Kingweston in 1967 with his wife, Esther, and four children. He was widowed in 1980 and remained in Kingweston for the rest of his life. He died on 6 January 2006, leaving his four children, 10 grand children and two great grand children.

Parkfields’ former managers were questioned after the New Year’s Day death of Lucy Cox, 97. Nurse Rachel Baker, 45, who was listed as the home manager, was arrested on suspicion of administering a noxious substance. Her 48-year-old husband Leigh, a chef at the home, was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in the administration of a noxious substance. The pair, who live in Glastonbury, have both been bailed until September.

Police are unable to examine the bodies of three other former residents because they were cremated. The care home investigation began after an inspection by the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) in January.

At the time a CSCI spokesman said: “We carried out an unannounced inspection at the home…and found that standards had deteriorated significantly since the previous inspection in June 2006.”