Charming Churchwarden? Court Hears He Was ‘Gaslighter’, Fraudster, Torturer And Murderer
By: Andy Killoran
Tags: True Crime, Gaslighting, Blackmail, Fraud, Murder

Charming Churchwarden? Court Hears He Was ‘Gaslighter’, Fraudster, Torturer And Murderer

36 year sentence for this cruel and contemptuous killer

Peter Farquhar with Benjamin Field — Image, Thames Valley Police

A younger person getting together with an older (and often, more affluent) person and wanting to get their hands on the older person’s money is nothing new. We have terms for it, like ‘gold-digger’. What makes this story rather more unusual is the sheer, contemptuous and unalloyed greed, coupled to the heartless contempt. It seems that Field’s victims meant nothing to him at all.

As my account here will attest, this criminal seems not to have any shame, any empathy or indeed any interest in anyone but himself: Everyone else on the planet appears merely to be there for him to exploit.

What happened?

Benjamin (Ben) Field entered into a relationship with an author, Peter Farquhar, whom he was to subsequently murder. Field was 29-years-old when he freely admitted this was in an attempt to inherit Mr Farquhar’s fortune: Field wasn’t finished there. After Mr Farquhar was dead, Field moved on to another potential victim — Ms Ann Moore-Martin, an unmarried older woman, who also lived in the sleepy Gloucestershire village of Maids Moreton in the English countryside west of London. Field did not kill Ms Moore-Martin, she died of natural causes, although she did suffer at his hands.

Astonishingly, in evidence Police produced at Field’s murder trial, they showed he had a list of more than 100 potential victims, including his parents and grandparents.

Fortunately, the Court gave Field a substantial prison sentence before he could commit further crimes.

Who is Ben Field?

Born October 27 1990, Ben Field is the middle child of Ian and Beverly Field with an older sister (Hannah) and a younger brother (Tom). His parents raised him in Market Harborough, in the English Midlands county of Leicestershire.

In 2008 the Field family moved to the market town of Olney in Buckinghamshire, a short distance north and west of London. Ian Field, Benjamin Field’s father, became the minister of Olney Baptist Church. He stood down from this position when Police put his son on trial for murder.

Ben Field got above average results at school and went on to earn a Bachelor’s degree in English at Buckingham University.

Neighbours said that the Fields were “the backbone of the community”, but the people who lived nearby knew little else about them.

Witnesses told that Court that Field lived a life mainly within his thoughts. On the witness stand, Field himself said: “Most of my pleasures have been privately held. It’s the habit of a lifetime to be living inside my head.”

Academically bright, he was bored and somewhat insurrectionist at school, but his rebellion was unusual — he would skip classes to go to the library and read furiously. He had a fascination with words and their meanings.

In his early 20’s, he routinely met with men he had contacted on Grinder or Craig’s List, and allow them to perform oral sex on him in return for a small payment of $40 or $50. It seems to have been just transactional, mechanical, not any kind of relationship. He told the Crown Court that it wasn’t even about the money, it was, he said: “…to push my own boundaries.” Field said: “I have deceived absolutely everybody that I have any kind of relationship with.”

This man may be an example of what used to be called a ‘sociopath’ (now more commonly called antisocial personality disorder).

The first victim

Ben Field started to get closer to an author and part-time University lecturer, Peter Farquhar — a person who he had met, lecturing at the university Field attended.

Peter Anthony Scott Farquhar was born in 1946 and was 69 in 2015 when Field killed him. Mr Farquhar has been a much-loved and respected teacher in different schools over his career, and at one point had considered a career change to become a minister of the church. He was very religious and had never married. When Field took up with him, he was a part-time lecturer at the University of Buckingham (Field’s alma mater).

Peter Farquhar was also the author of three well-received books ‘Between Boy And Man’, ‘A Bitter Heart’ and ‘A Wide Wide Sea’ (written in 1997 but not published until 2015 and which Mr Farquhar dedicated to Field).

The book ‘Between Boy And Man’ was filmed as ‘Believe’. In the film, a semi-autobiographical character called Dr Farquhar struggles to reconcile his homosexuality with his deep Christian faith.

The last book published, ‘A Wide Wide Sea’, was the first book written. Then-student Field, and another student, found the manuscript in the library at Buckingham University and persuaded Mr Farquhar, the author, to get it published.

Mr Farquhar had not long before retired from his role as Head of the English Department at Stowe School, where he had been teaching for many years. He intended to write and to lecture part-time at the university, also.

The respective comments by the two men about their first meeting are telling: Writing about Field, Mr Farquhar said he had: “…given a lecture about Coleridge to a group who were unresponsive apart from an enthusiastic and clever student with short brown hair” — this was Field.

Field, meanwhile, was to tell the Court during his trial that: “…his lecturer was a virgin whom (Field) was going to exploit for his vanity and desire for companionship.”

The men entered into a close association, formalising it with a betrothal ceremony in 2014. The men were in a romantic but non-sexual relationship. Friends of Mr Farquhar said he was an intelligent and devout, profoundly Christian man, who some of them knew to be gay, but who was emotionally lonely.

Again, what the two men said about their circumstances is telling. Writing in his diary after the ‘betrothal’, Mr Farquhar said: “One of the happiest moments of my life. Gone are the fears of dying alone.”

Field, in contrast, admitted that it was a con, that he had tricked Mr Farquhar into a relationship on false pretences and was exploiting the lecturer’s loneliness. In an email, Field wrote: “He gives me things, and he gets me for a length of time.”

Over the next two years, Field drugged Mr Farquhar, got him drinking alcohol and ‘gaslighted’ him, making Mr Farquhar believe he was losing his mind. To muddle and confuse his victim more, Field would add bioethanol and poteen (strong Irish whiskey) to the drink that he gave Mr Farquhar. Mr Farquhar had not been a big drinker though his life and these potent drinks, together with the drugs Field laced his food with, left him confused and with his memory impaired. Field would also move items in the house to new locations, to make Mr Farquhar think that he was ‘losing his mind’. Mr Farquhar started to have falls.

Field said subsequently that this campaign was just to torment Mr Farquhar. As well as the liquor, Field spiked his fiancé’s food with benzodiazepines and hallucinogenics. He told the jury as his subsequent trial he did this: “…for no other reason other than it was cruel, to upset and torment Peter (Farquhar)– purely out of meanness”.

Mr Farquhar told friends he was suffering hallucinations. Friends noticed he was sometimes unsteady on his feet, and his speech was occasionally slurred. Some friends were concerned, was this alcoholism?

Mr Farquhar worried that these might be signs of the early stages of dementia.

After Mr Farquhar died in October 2015, Field attempted to make the death look like accident or suicide. The facts were that Field had suffocated Mr Farquhar at a time when he was too weak to resist. He had then left a half-empty bottle of whisky in Mr Farquhar’s room to give the impression the older man had drunk himself to death.

Fields attempts were successful, in that the Coroner recorded Mr Farquhar’s death as accidental, a result of acute intoxication. Field himself gave the eulogy at Mr Farquhar’s funeral.

Field had what he had set out to achieve. Mr Farquhar had changed his will and left Field £20,000 (about $27,000) and also a life-interest in Mr Farquhar’s property.

It was only after his arrest in January 2018 that the evidence was to emerge that Field had tricked Mr Farquhar into a relationship to get him to change his will.

Second victim

Within a short time, Field had moved on to his next victim. It was not only a short time; it was a small distance, too. Miss Ann Moore-Martin, an unmarried, childless woman not only lived in the same village as Field but her house was also only three houses away from the home of the late Peter Farquhar.

Field persuaded Ms Moore-Martin, and in time they embarked on a sexual relationship. In a letter he sent to Ms Moore-Martin in 2017, he wrote: “I desire you, and desire to woo you…my…hope is that you would see me as I see you…a beautiful, fun, lovely…woman of faith and grace.”

At the same time, Field was again up to his ‘gaslighting’ tricks. In the case of the very religious Ms Moore-Martin, this took the form of writing messages ‘from God’ on mirrors in her house. These ‘biblical style’ messages instructed her to change her will in Field’s favour — which, in the end, she did because she believed she was getting a message from God. In her new will, she left her house to Field.

Field moved in with Ms Moore-Martin. Whilst they were living together, Field took a photograph with his phone of her performing a sex act on him. She did not know about the photo. He told the Court it was a backup for him, useful in case he needed to blackmail her.

Miss Moore-Martin died of natural causes in May 2017. Field was charged with her attempted murder, although subsequently acquitted. The prosecution used one of Field’s notebooks that Police produced in evidence in the trial to show that he had considered how he might end her life, showing the jury an entry which read: “Heart attack — electrical device, dehydration, stair, sex?, in the bath? … OD on her prescriptions … church tower … sleep apnoea.”

It was after having a seizure in February 2017 that Ms Moore-Martin was hospitalised and was visited in hospital by her niece. She told her niece about her experiences, including about the messages on her mirrors. When her niece informed the Police, they began an investigation.

Ms Moore-Martin changed her will back to benefit her family. She was to say, before her death, that she could not understand how she had fallen for the con trick. She died in May 2017.

Police investigation — a huge task and a massive effort

Reports often say that ‘thousands of man-hours’ were involved in a search for a killer or a serious criminal. The oddity here was that the Police started out knowing who, they believed, the likely murderer was, but without the evidence to convict him: Indeed, their first hurdle was that they did not even have enough evidence to arrest him.

Ms Moore-Martin talking to her niece provided the spark and that niece talking to the Police first lit the small flame. Still, it took not hours but person-years of work for the Thames Valley Police to be in a position to charge Benjamin Field and to allow the British Crown Prosecution Service to deliver a successful prosecution in his case.

Police started looking into the death of Peter Farquhar only about 18 months after he was dead and buried. The Coroners Court had recorded Mr Farquhar’s death as accidental; there was no Police investigation. If Field had stopped there, he would have got away with his crime: Whilst some people were puzzled by the death and the out-of-character drinking, no-one was looking into this death.

The evidence, as it emerged, came from different sources:

Peter Farquhar was in the habit of keeping a daily journal and information in this gave insight into his life and his relationship with Field. Perhaps concerned by the details recorded, Field had taken away the last journals Peter Farquhar had written (covering end 2014 to his death in October ‘15), but crucially, had not destroyed or disposed of them. They were recovered by the Police when they arrested Field.

Field himself kept notes, and some of these were critical

Authorities exhumed Mr Farquhar’s body and performed extensive forensic tests. These were to reveal information about drugs in his system, about the amount of alcohol he had drunk on the night he died, and other facts

Physical evidence, such as fingerprint evidence, was found

Details in Mr Farquhar’s journal filled in gaps about his relationship with Field, for example how Field had first visited Mr Farquhar’s home in August 2011, culminating in his being allowed to stay there to finish his dissertation. By early October of the same year, Mr Farquhar had given Field a key to the house. In the same month, Mr Farquhar records his delight when Field told him that he loved him.

The journal documents the deepening relationship. What Mr Farquhar did not know, but other records allowed the Police to discover was that Field was developing relationships with at least four other people at the same time he was living with Mr Farquhar.

The journal does record that Field asked Mr Farquhar if they could become betrothed in January 2014.

Police discovered that, five months before Peter Farquhar died, Field was already getting involved with Ann Moore-Martin. Evidence recovered in her case showed that Field was giving her ‘white powders’ which, Field said, were “better medicine than you can get from hospital”.

Evidence that Field was giving Ann Moore-Martin drugs before her death, together with her having symptoms similar to those Mr Farquhar had had, was enough for the Police to request to exhume Mr Farquhar’s body. The Police wanted a forensic check for evidence of drugs. Many drugs leave a trace in hair; tests will reveal the presence of drugs and of which drugs Mr Farquhar ingested and how long ago.

An early result, following Mr Farquhar’s exhumation, was that the alcohol he had ingested was not enough to have killed him, meaning that the conclusion from the original inquest must have been wrong. In a separate but linked finding, the Police established that Peter Farquhar’s fingerprints were not on the liquor bottle found beside his body: But Ben Field’s fingerprints were.

The Police had taken all of these steps without Field being aware. The Police did not want to show their hand too early and did not want Field to destroy any evidence or otherwise do anything to impede their enquiry; however, the Police felt that at this point, it was time to arrest Field. Not knowing which of several possible locations Field would be at, the Police raided several properties simultaneously early in the morning of January 16 2018, successfully apprehending him and seizing books, journals, documents, drugs and computer equipment.

Field was questioned by the Police and mostly gave ‘no comment’ responses in a series of interviews. The Police Senior Investigating Officer consulted the Crown Prosecution Service, but the prosecutors were not happy that Field be charged at this point. The Police needed time to work through the material they had seized at the time of Field’s arrest, so they took the unusual step of releasing a murder suspect on bail (the law requires that the Police, with certain exceptions, charge or release after 72 hours detention).

Police unearthed several vital pieces of evidence in the detailed analysis of the material seized. Included in this:

The Police found images, taken by Field, of Field himself with messages that had been written on the mirrors in Ann Moore-Martin’s house — part of his scheme to make her believe that God was telling her to change her will in Field’s favour

Peter Farquhar was documenting his deterioration in the missing journals. On August 6 2015, he wrote: “…lost faith, failing badly, please let nothing else go wrong”. He was being drugged and gaslighted by Field

The Police discovered that Ben Field had been assessed by a psychiatrist as part of the process when he applied to become a church minister. The psychiatrist who interviewed him formed the opinion that he might be a psychopath — a person with no empathy and very manipulative. Field being considered a psychopath tallied with the image the Police were building of this man and his relationships.

A draft will for another woman was found by the Police in Field’s possession bequeathing her estate to him. The woman herself was not aware of any legitimate reason for Field to have this.

The Police found an entry on Field’s computer, where he said: “(Peter Farquhar) is lonely, retired early to write but his days are not full. I (Ben Field) want to exploit him.”

The discoveries continued

In February 2018, the Police found a note in a notebook recovered from Ben Field’s apartment. Field makes a clear statement about giving drugs to Peter Farquhar — benzodiazepines, sleeping tablets, hallucinogenics.

April 18, the Police find Ben Field’s fingerprints on drug packaging

August 18, the Police match two entries together — Field’s, in his diary, records that he made Peter Farquhar breakfast and put drugs in it. In a journal entry for the same day, Peter Farquhar records that he was happy to receive breakfast in bed, courtesy of Field.

Another entry in Field’s notebook sets out his intended plan with Peter Farquhar

o Cordial

o Marriage to Peter

o Will

o Can still gaslight him for fun

Next to Peter Farquhar’s name is a cartoon of a grave and the words under it say “the hole’s the goal.”

· Yet another entry in the notes says o 2014 — Cordial to Peter — will o 2015 — end Peter

The final, crucial, missing piece of evidence was delivered to the Police by the Forensic Science team in October 2018. Forensic tests had revealed the presence in Mr Farquhar’s hair sample of two psychoactive drugs. The scientific analysis showed Mr Farquhar must have been ingesting these drugs in the six months before his death. No Doctor had prescribed these drugs to Mr Farquhar and packaging for one of these drugs was found in Field’s possession and with Field’s fingerprints on it.

The Police felt that they now had the evidence that they needed and they asked for and got Crown Prosecution Service sanction to re-arrest and to charge Ben Field.

The verdict in Court

In Court in August 2019, Field pleaded guilty fraud concerning the fake relationships both with Mr Farquhar and with Ms Moore-Martin. He was admitting defrauding Ms Moore-Martin out of more than £30,000 (about $40,000) and other charges. He denied having anything to do with the deaths of either of the two victims. He was found not guilty of the attempted murder of Ms Moore-Martin, but guilty of the murder of Mr Farquhar.

At a sentencing hearing in October 2019, the Court sentenced Field to life imprisonment with a recommendation that he serves at least 36 years before he can apply for parole.

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Glover, of Thames Valley Police, commented on the case. He said Field was: “unlike any other criminal” he had come across in decades as a Police Officer. DCI Glover went on: “The extent of his planning, deception and cruelty towards his victims is frankly staggering, and I do not believe (Field) has ever shown an ounce of remorse or contrition. If he is sorry for anything, it is that he got caught.