A COUPLE have been charged in connection with the neglect of mentally ill patients in Colchester care homes.

Daramdeo and Naliny Ramchurn, also known as David and Linda Ramchurn, were arrested on April 21 last year, after a series of dawn raids at nine care homes in Cowdray Avenue and Harwich Road.

The couple were released on bail while police investigated allegations of neglect and ill-treatment at homes they ran.

Yesterday, each was charged with ten counts of wilful neglect and 11 counts of fraud.

Nishan Wijeratne, spokesman for Essex Police, said: “A man and a woman are due to appear in court later this summer, having been charged with a number of offences relating to the welfare of residents at several care homes in Colchester.”

Ramchurn, 72, and his wife, 57, live in Valentine’s Drive, Colchester, but spend much of their time at 124 Cowdray Avenue, which has been used as a home for six mentally-disabled patients.

Both are former nurses at the old Turner Village Hospital for mentally-disabled patients in Colchester. While still working there in the late Eighties, they set up their first private care businesses – a mixture of conventional nursing homes and houses where care in the community patients were able to live more independently.

After being charged, the couple were once again released on police bail.

They will appear before Colchester Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, July 8.