Maids Moreton murder: Church warden who killed older lover for money jailed for life

A church warden who murdered his elderly lover to benefit from his will has been jailed for life with a minimum of 36 years.

Ben Field, 28, killed university lecturer Peter Farquhar before preying on another elderly neighbour he had a relationship with.

Prosecutors said he had a “profound fascination in controlling and manipulating and humiliating and killing”, which was detailed in his diaries and journals.

Field attempted to portray Mr Farquhar, an eminent teacher and author, as an alcoholic in the hope his death would be attributed to natural causes after convincing him to change his will.

The pair entered into a relationship after meeting at the University of Buckingham, where Field was Mr Farquhar’s English student.

Oxford Crown Court heard that Field moved into Mr Farquhar’s home in the village of Maids Moreton in 2014 and in March of that year they underwent a “betrothal” ceremony at a church.

“It is one of the happiest moments of my life,” Mr Farquhar wrote in a journal. “Gone are the fears of dying alone.”

Less than two years later he was dead, murdered by Field after a campaign of psychological torture that aimed to convince Mr Farquhar he was losing his mind.

Field spiked his food and drink with neat alcohol and hallucinogenic drugs, while moving everyday objects around the house and “gaslighting” his victim into believing he had misplaced them or forgotten his own actions.

Mr Farquhar, a well-known academic and author who had taught at Stowe and Manchester Grammar School, had been “fit in mind and body”.

But the court heard how Field’s efforts caused “agony” for his victim, causing him to believe he could be a closet alcoholic or suffering from dementia.

Prosecutor Oliver Saxby QC said Field had hoped Mr Farquhar may kill himself, after making changes to his will meaning he would receive £20,000 and a life interest in his home.

A partly empty bottle of whisky and glass nearby and Field told paramedics he had “alcohol issues”, sparking a routine post-mortem that resulted in an initial finding of death by “acute alcohol intoxication”.

It was not until a second post-mortem in 2017 that police discovered Mr Farquhar had been given a cocktail of sedatives over several months, and may have been smothered.

The death was revisited after a woman who lived in the same village, Ann Moore-Martin, said Field had been giving her “white powder”.

The former Catholic school headteacher, 83, also lived alone in Maids Moreton and entered a sexual relationship with Field before Mr Farquhar’s death.

The court heard that Field embarked on a campaign of “mirror writing” where he scrawled messages throughout her home claiming to be from God and encouraging her to make him a beneficiary of her will.

Ms Moore-Martin suffered a seizure and was admitted to hospital in February 2017, later telling a friend that she had been given “white powder” by Field to sleep better.

A police investigation started and Ms Moore-Martin went into a care home, where she later died from a stroke in May 2017.

Before her death, she told officers that she changed her will because she thought she loved Field and “wanted to support him in all the ways I could”.

Field’s co-accused, 32-year-old magician Martyn Smith, was found not guilty of murder at a trial earlier this year.

The pair were both cleared of a charge of conspiracy to murder Ms Moore-Martin and Field was also acquitted of her attempted murder.

Field, a Baptist minister’s son, admitted fraudulently being in relationships with Mr Farquhar and Ms Moore-Martin as part of a plot to get them to change their wills but denied any involvement in their deaths.

Field’s brother Tom, 24, a Cambridge University graduate, was cleared of a single charge of fraud.