A second person has been charged with murder as part of a probe into deaths at a Clacton care home.

Angela Postill, 41, the owner of Carnarvon Lodge Residential Care Home, is accused of murdering Eunice Fifield.

She was charged with the 62-year-old's death by police on Monday night, but no date has yet been set for a further court appearance.

Mrs Fifield died at the home in Carnarvon Road on September 25 last year.

Care worker Pearl Gunfield, 41, of Harwich Road, Little Clacton, appeared before Colchester magistrates on Monday charged with murdering the pensioner.

Gunfield is also charged, along with two other workers at the home and Mrs Postill, with unlawfully killing 95-year-old resident Winifred Armstrong between September 1 and October 19 last year.

Kirsty Gibson, 20, of West Avenue, Clacton, and Philip Perkins, 35, of DeVere Estate, Great Bentley, appeared before magistrates on Monday charged with the manslaughter of Mrs Armstrong.

They were remanded in custody and will reappear on Monday.

Mrs Postill, of Hawkendon Way, Clacton, arrived at the court separately from the other three and was remanded in police custody for three days for further questioning.

A team of three officers involved in the investigation travelled to Jersey yesterday to apply for permission to dig up the body of a third resident who died at the home.

Detectives need consent from the Viscount of Jersey, Peter de Gruchy, to exhume the body as part of the inquiry.

The Carnarvon Lodge care home was closed last October after an investigation by police and social services.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.