Forensic experts have been carrying out tests in a bedroom to find out how a woman of 94 suffered severe facial injuries.

Police are treating the incident as suspicious but Detective Inspector Graham Pratt, heading the inquiry, admitted: "It is not so much a 'whodunnit' as a 'what happened'."

Staff at St Bede's Residential Care Home in Sackville Gardens, Hove, discovered the victim injured in bed in the early hours of Wednesday.

She had a broken nose, black eyes and other serious facial injuries.

There were no signs of a forced entry at the home and nothing had been taken from her room.

Blood patterns found in the room are being examined by scientists and a Home Office pathologist has been called in to study the woman's injuries.

The woman is in Brighton General Hospital, where her condition is described as "satisfactory".