LONDON - Police were granted more time on Wednesday to question two people arrested on suspicion of murdering five people who lived at a care home they ran in Somerset.

The couple, identified in media reports as nurse Rachel Baker, 45, and her husband Leigh, 48, were held over the deaths of four women and one man at the Parkfields Care Residential Care Home in Butleigh, Somerset on Monday.

Avon and Somerset Police said the couple were also being held on suspicion of theft, unlawful possession of controlled prescribed drugs and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Detectives said they had successfully applied to magistrates for more time to quiz them.

The care home was closed earlier this year after an inspection by watchdog, the Commission for Social Care Inspection, who had alerted police.

Police originally questioned the couple in January, and later exhumed the bodies of three former residents of the home in June and July.

The couple remain in custody at Yeovil Police station.