Eight more foster home staff held over alleged abuse

Police said on Saturday that they had arrested eight more staff members of a foster home in Prince Edward over allegations of abuse.

Officers said the latest arrests came after they reviewed more security camera footage recorded between September and last month at the Children’s Residential Home.

They said the eight women, aged between 24 and 63, were being detained on suspicion of ill-treatment or neglect of children and are due to appear in court on Monday.

Detectives said 14 staff members of the care home had now been arrested in connection with the case so far, for allegedly abusing 26 children on 91 occasions.

The facility is run by the Society for the Protection of Children, and it takes care of babies and toddlers who are orphans, abandoned by their parents, referred by the courts or come from problematic families.

Officers said they had seized 46,000 hours of CCTV footage and are requesting more, adding it might take another two months before they could finish looking at all the footage.