A COURT has given Colchester police permission to temporarily keep almost £10,000 from two Colchester care home owners.

Police and social services officials searched nine properties owned by husband and wife David and Linda Ramchurn.

The couple, aged 71 and 56 respectively, were arrested and released on bail on suspicion of the neglect and ill-treatment of ten residents with learning difficulties at their care homes.

During last month’s raids, officers also seized £9,740 in cash from a property in Cowdray Avenue.

Det Sgt Stephen Jennings, of Colchester CID, successfully applied to Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court to keep the money for three months under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

During the hearing, he revealed detectives are also investigating the couple for two fraud offences.

Speaking to the Gazette afterwards he said: “The first is in relation to benefits these people have been given from the Government over the last few years.

“The second potentially is that if we prove the neglect side of the case then we will be looking at the wages – in excess of £350,000 – they received from social services.

“We have been granted permission to keep £9,740 cash for an initial three months to try and prove or disprove where it came from.”

The couple’s lawyer told the court the money came from legitimate sources, and was being kept at home because of their concerns over the current economic climate.

Mr and Mrs Ramchurn were both formerly nurses at the old Turner Village Hospital for mentally disabled patients in Colchester.

While still working there in the late 1980s they set up the first of their private care businesses, a mixture of conventional nursing homes and houses, where care in the community patients lived more independently.

Essex County Council withdrew financial support to the couple last year because the standards at their homes allegedly fell below what was expected.