Killer vicar who poisoned teacher lover caught by notes from beyond grave

01 February 2024 , 19:45

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Peter Farquhar and Benjamin Field at their betrothal ceremony (Image: PA)

Retired grammar school teacher Peter Farquhar thought he'd met his match when he fell for devoted church warden Ben Field.

Despite their 41-year age gap, the loved-up couple were planning to marry, and at 69, Peter deserved his retirement. But the man he was living with and thought he was going to spend the rest of his life with was slowly poisoning him to death, so he could get his callous hands on his hard-earned cash.

Channel 4 documentary, Catching A Killer, examines how police picked apart sadistic Field's web of lies and how they used Peter's meticulous journal entries, which were riddled with clues, to piece together what actually happened to the religious church-goer.

Peter's heartbreaking diary entries showed the depth of his feelings for then-28-year-old Field, whom 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."

Peter's heartbreaking diary entires show the depth of his feelings for Field (Channel 4)

But everything about their relationship was fake and nothing more than an elaborate plot for Field to take on Peter's wealth and even his home. Peter wasn't even the only person Field was pretending to love - he was involved with four other women while living with the retired teacher.

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He claimed his weekends away, when he would meet up with the women, were training course for his job. Every one of the women believed they were in a loving relationship with Field. But then in 2015, Peter 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.

Field moved in with Peter and then slowly poisoned him (PA)

His 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, Peter'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. A detective later investigating the case found that Peter's diary would be "crucial" in solving his own murder. In it, he complained of feeling "lethargic" and wrote about his fear of losing his mind.

"There is something not right," the once switched-on English teacher wrote. Senior investigating officer DCI Mark Glover said: "In a way Peter is talking to us from beyond the grave, potentially narrating his own murder."

Field then moved in with Ann Moore-Martin, who lived just three hosues along from the home he had shared with Peter (PA)

In his will, he had left Field a £20,000 windfall. Had the evil killer been satisfied with one chilling murder, his crimes may have remained undetected as Peter's passing initially wasn't treated as suspicious - but it wasn't enough.

Straight after, 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.

They began a sexual relationship with sick Field even filming Ann performing a sex act that he would later blackmail her with. But when he was named in her will, Ann's family and solicitor became suspicious about what was actually happening and launched an investigation.

Field started a sexual relation with Ann but her family became suspicious when he was named in her will (PA)

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.

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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.

Field was jailed for 36 years for the crimes

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."

Field was also exposed in his own notes and diaries. He wrote that he could go for a late night stroll around Maids Moreton "suffocating or beating neighbours and have 50 in one night…". He had fantasised about hitting Peter with a hammer, which led to a darkly comic exchange in court.

Asked where he imagined hitting him, he said in Peter's house. When the lawyer clarified that he meant where on the body, Field replied: "I suppose I was thinking on his head."

Field referred to his patter of lies as 'snaketalking' and described his antics as "the ruse cruise". He was living a life of "interiority", he said, which meant "living inside your own head as an authentic self, absent from others, having no true interaction with others, being instead an ironic spectator on your own life".

The callous killer was convicted of both Peter and Ann's murders in August 2019 and jailed for 36 years. Following his conviction, Peter's brother, Ian, said: "His actions have been unbelievably callous, and he has told lie after lie after lie in order to achieve his goals, deceiving everyone he met.

"He did it all just to get some money, which we find absolutely astonishing. If people hear this story, we hope that they are very, very careful if somebody unexpected walks into the life of a loved one when that loved one is vulnerable and lonely."

Catching A Killer is on Channel 4 at 9pm tonight.

Martin Fricker