The Criminal Case Review Commission said “exceptional circumstances” could lead to the conviction of Ben Field, 34, being ruled unsafe – six years after he was jailed for killing Peter Farquhar, 69
A church warden jailed for seducing and murdering a university lecturer has had his case referred to the Court of Appeal.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission said “exceptional circumstances” could lead to the conviction of Ben Field, 34, being ruled unsafe. The Baptist minister’s son was jailed for life after he killed Peter Farquhar, 69, after a “gaslight”-style campaign of physical and mental torture. It included slipping him drugs and spiking his whisky.
The murder was dramatised in the BBC production “The Sixth Commandment”, starring Timothy Spall. A court heard he disguised Mr Farquhar’s death as alcoholism, hoping to get his hands on his house in the village of Maids Moreton, Bucks. In total Field was said to have defrauded Mr Farquhar of £160,000 from his will. He used money from the inheritance to buy a flat in Towcester, Northamptonshire.
But after he was ordered to serve a minimum of 36 years in jail, Field launched an appeal, claiming that “exceptional circumstances” had emerged “which justify the court to reconsider the argument on causation which was made on appeal”. The justice watchdog today said: “The CCRC has considered that this case should be referred as there is sufficient merit in the submissions now, giving rise to a real possibility that the court will find his conviction of murder unsafe.”
The CCRC said it would refer the case to the Court of Appeal over a legal argument linked to whether Mr Farquhar had been tricked into drinking the whisky or had done so willingly. Field previously attempted to appeal against his conviction but this was rejected by the Court of Appeal in 2021. He was denied permission to reopen the appeal in March the following year. He then applied to the CCRC to consider his case in September 2022.
Field was jailed in 2019 after his trial was told he also targeted deeply religious neighbour Ann Moore-Martin, 84. Field, who had a string of female and male lovers, wrote “messages from God” on her mirrors telling her to leave him her home.
After a ten-week trial, Field was convicted of murder and admitted fraud. He was acquitted of plotting to murder Miss Moore-Martin, who died from natural causes. The Cambridge graduate, of Olney, Bucks, had also drawn up a “100 clients” list – including his parents, grandparents and brother – who prosecutors said were future targets.
After sentencing at Oxford crown court, Mr Farquhar’s brother Ian said: “Ben Field is a deeply malevolent and thoroughly evil man.” Detectives on the case described Field as a “psychopath”. The judge in his trial said he demonstrated “grandiosity, a sense of superiority towards others, the exploitation of others to achieve personal gain, the need to belittle and humiliate others, fixation on fantasies of power and success, intelligence, a need for admiration from others, and a sense of entitlement together with an unwillingness to empathise with the feelings, needs and wishes of others.”
In 2023 a proceeds of crime hearing at Oxford Crown Court heard how Field had received £193,921.32 from his two victims and ordered him to pay £123,111.26 to Mr Farquhar’s family and £23,449.76 to the family of Ms Moore-Martin. Failure to do so, he was told, would mean a 16-month extension to his 36-year minimum jail sentence.
This figure was later “varied down” due to the sale price and associated costs of selling the flat he had bought with his illegal inheritance money. Thames Valley Police said the confiscation order of £124,665.03 had now been paid, adding “monies have been distributed as part of the agreed order to the victims in this case”.
In a lengthy statement released today, the CCRC said: “Benjamin Field was convicted in August 2019 at Oxford Crown Court of the murder of Peter Farquhar. Mr Farquhar was found dead in his home in Maids Moreton in October 2015. Mr Field had pretended to be in a relationship with Mr Farquhar to inherit his estate.
“Mr Farquhar’s cause of death was determined as being a result of acute alcohol toxicity, but after a second post-mortem Flurazepam, which is commonly used to treat insomnia, was also found. Mr Field was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 36 years.
The prosecution case was that Mr Field had manipulated Mr Farquhar into changing his will and then killed him by giving him whisky and encouraging him to drink it.
“This was while deceiving him as to his true intention, so making it look as if he had drunk himself to death. The defence case was denial of an intention to kill. During the trial, the defence argued that as a matter of law an individual’s deceptive conduct could amount to murder only if the deception was as to the nature of the act, and not as to their intention in committing it. The trial judge ruled against this argument.
“Mr Field appealed his conviction, arguing that the legal ruling was incorrect and so the directions given to the jury in relation to causation were insufficient and wrong in law. The conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeal in March 2021. An application to re-open the appeal was also refused in March 2022.
“An application to the CCRC was received in September 2022 making two submissions: firstly, that the criticism on the directions on causation is supported by decisions on consent procured by deception in the law of sexual offences (where consent is invalidated only if the deception is as to the nature of the act or the identity of the perpetrator).
“Secondly, it has been argued there are exceptional circumstances which justify the court to reconsider the argument on causation which was made on appeal. Exceptional circumstances are considered where an argument has developed that could persuade the court that the conviction is unsafe.
“The issue of causation was dealt with extensively at trial and the appeal, but the CCRC has considered that this case should be referred as there is sufficient merit in the submissions now, giving rise to a real possibility that the court will find his conviction of murder unsafe. “
Field met Mr Farquhar while he was a student at Buckingham University and the pair soon struck up a friendship. Before long, Field had been given a key to Peter’s home and the pair were living together. Mr Farquhar’s heartbreaking diary entries showed the depth of his feelings for Field, who was just 28 and who he credited with helping him feel comfortable in his sexuality.
He wrote: “Ben is so sympathetic, warm, amusing and appreciative. I’m just so grateful to God for suddenly bringing Ben into my life.” But everything about their relationship was fake and nothing more than elaborate plot for Field to get his hands on Peter’s wealth and even his home.
Mr Farquhar wasn’t even the only person Field was pretending to love – he was involved with four other women while living with the retired teacher. He claimed his weekends away, when he would meet up with the women, were training course for his job. Everyone of the women believed they were in a loving relationship with Field.
But then in 2015 Mr Farquhar was struck down with a mystery illness that doctors were at a loss to diagnose. In reality, Peter was slowly being poisoned by the man he loved, who was drugging him with a potent mix of sleeping pills and psychoactive pills. Not only that but he had convinced his older lover that he was now battling dementia and needed to urgently make a will.
He sinister plot meant he would hide things in the house and insist Peter had forgotten where he had put them to strengthen his story. Then, on October 26, 2016, Mr Farquhar’s cleaner found him dead on a chair next to a bottle of whisky. Initial investigations put his death down to acute alcohol intoxication and the case was set aside.
And in Mr Farquhar’s will, he had left Field a £20,000 windfall. Had the callous killer been satisfied with one chilling murder, his crimes may have remained undetected – but it wasn’t enough. Straight after Mr Farquhar’s death, Field moved in with 83-year-old Ann Moore-Martin, who lived just three doors away from the home he had shared with his lover in Maids Moreton.
Devout Catholic Ann was also a retired teacher and was soon also in love with Field after he wrote her romantic letters and poetry. But when he was named in her will, Ann’s family and solicitor became suspicious about what was actually happening and launched an investigation. It was too late and just two weeks later, in May 2017, Ann was dead.
Initially, Field admitted he had “psychologically manipulated” both the pensioners but denied any involvement in their deaths -but police were not convinced. Detective Mark Glover was so certain of Field’s guilt that he came out of retirement to solve the case.
But police needed more than strong circumstantial evidence to prove murder. In a rare move, Peter’s body was exhumed in February 2017. Forensics found no signs of excessive alcohol in his liver but traces of two drugs in his hair. They were the same drugs that had been found with Field’s fingerprints on the packaging.
When he realised he could no longer evade justice, Field seemed almost proud when he revealed his sick plot. Det Glover described Field as a “psychopath, sociopath and possibly even a sadist” who was addicted to killing. Chillingly, he has also revealed that the killer had a list containing 100 names -and which Det Glover believes were potential future victims.
He said: “He didn’t say it was a list of 100 people he was going to kill, but he didn’t deny that either. He did say they were all people that were useful to him that he could deceive in one way or another. It included his grandparents, Smith, Smith’s parents, his girlfriend, his girlfriend’s mother. He identified them all as potential targets. They all had no children to inherit from the will, so it made things slightly easier. Those were the kind of people he would target for fraud.”
