French care worker held over deaths of six pensioners

AA care worker at a home for the elderly in Chambery in the French Alps has been arrested on suspicion of poisoning six pensioners to death, reports the BBC.

She admitted having wanted to relieve their suffering but denied that she had sought to kill them, a police source told French media.

The six pensioners all died in the space of two months.

When a woman of 84 died last month, an autopsy uncovered suspicious traces of drugs, France Info radio reports.

An examination was carried out because the woman at the Jacob-Bellecombette home near Chambery had suddenly fallen into a coma on 27 November, dying two days later.

Read more of this report from the BBC.