Benjamin Field's Maids Moreton murder conviction quashed

A former churchwarden who was imprisoned for the murder of a university lecturer has recently had his conviction overturned by the Court of Appeal. Benjamin Field, aged 35, had been serving a minimum sentence of 36 years after being found guilty of killing Peter Farquhar, a 69-year-old academic, in Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire, back in 2015.

The appeal judges ruled that the jury at Oxford Crown Court had not received proper instructions regarding crucial evidence suggesting that Farquhar had consumed whisky that was possibly laced with drugs. This misdirection was central to the decision to order a retrial. Despite this, Lord Justice Edis, together with Mr Justice Goose and Mr Justice Butcher, indicated that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) could escalate the case to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Field will remain incarcerated while any appeal to the Supreme Court is underway.

During the original trial in 2019, prosecutors contended that Field deliberately tampered with Farquhar’s whisky to induce the belief that the victim was losing his mental faculties, hoping to secure the right to inherit Farquhar’s property and money. However, Field’s defence team recently argued in the Court of Appeal that there was no clear evidence showing that Farquhar was coerced or deceived into ingesting the spiked drink or medication before he died. At trial, the jury had been told that Field suffocated Farquhar when he had grown too frail to resist and staged the scene by leaving a half-empty whisky bottle nearby to suggest death by self-poisoning.

In addition to the murder verdict, Field had also received a concurrent 16-year jail sentence for fraud and burglary concerning both Farquhar and another elderly victim, Ann Moore-Martin, 83. Field had manipulated Moore-Martin, a retired headteacher, by writing messages on her mirrors, falsely claiming to represent God. He admitted to faking intimate relationships with both seniors as part of his scheme to alter their wills in his favour. Although he was acquitted of conspiracy and attempted murder charges related to Moore-Martin, she passed away from natural causes in 2017. Field’s conviction was referred for review by the Criminal Cases Review Commission under exceptional circumstances, which permits appeals without new evidence. The appeal judges criticized the original trial for failing to properly address whether Farquhar’s decision to drink the whisky was voluntary, a crucial point left to the jury’s consideration

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