Karen Foster will appear before Blackburn Magistrates’ Court this morning (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

A woman has been charged with murder after the death of a baby in Hapton, Lancashire.

Police were called to a home in the village on March 1 last year following reports a baby boy had suffered a medical episode.

The child, aged nine-and-a-half months, was taken to hospital for treatment, where he died on March 5.

In March, a 60-year-old woman from Haslingden and a 78-year-old man from Burnley were arrested on suspicion of Section 18 Assault and subsequently arrested on suspicion of murder.

The 78-year-old man has now been released without charge but, after consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service, police have now charged the woman with the baby’s murder.

Karen Foster, 61, of no fixed address, will appear before Blackburn Magistrates’ Court this morning.

She is also charged with a separate S47 assault on a one-year-old girl in Hapton on March 22, 2019.

Foster is not related to either of the two victims and the two children are not related to one another.