BBC's The Sixth Commandment's real-life DCI Mark Glover life after tragic case

24 July 2023 , 19:45

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BBC's The Sixth Commandment's real-life DCI Mark Glover life after tragic case

The Sixth Commandment has quickly become the latest drama to capture the nation's attention.

Starring Timothy Spall and Anne Reid, the four-part BBC true crime series about Peter Farquhar and Ann Moore-Martin, who were preyed upon by PhD student and Baptist minister's son Ben Field.

The drama is based on a chilling real-life case from the early 2010s, when Field - played by Éanna Hardwicke in series - began a campaign of harassment disguised as love against devout Christian, Peter.

Peter, portrayed on screen by Timothy Spall, was four decades Field's senior and had been struggling with sexuality for many years.

The Sixth Commandment stars Timothy Spall and Sheila Hancock in character for the BBC series (BBC/Wild Mercury/Amanda Searle)

Field tricked Peter into making him the sole beneficiary of his will and drugged him with hallucinogens and encouraged him to drink alcohol. Eventually, Field murdered Peter in 2015 – making it look like the 69-year-old had taken his own life – and inherited his estate. Field went on to target elderly neighbour Ann Moore-Martin, played by Anne Reid in the BBC series.

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In January 2018, Field was arrested and eventually convicted of the murder of Peter. He was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 36 years in October 2019. Field has lost appeals against the conviction on two occasions since being imprisoned.

The Sixth Commandment, the BBC drama about Field's horrific crimes, doesn't cover the police investigation until the third – and penultimate – episode of the four-part series. Writer Sarah Phelps, the brains also behind A Very British Scandal and Dublin Murders, says was due to the fact she didn't want to glamourise Field and wanted to avoid a "cat-and-mouse" narrative of the police versus the villain.

DCI Mark Glover is played by Jonathan Aris in the four-part series (SCU)

Sherlock actor Jonathan Aris plays DCI Mark Glover in The Sixth Commandment – the "incredibly dogged investigator" – who led the investigation to reveal Field's crimes and pieced together a series on cryptic clues to solve the complex case. 1,407 statements were taken and 40 suspect interviews were conducted during the investigation.

Glover retired from Thames Valley Police in May 2018 having completed thirty years service as a Detective Chief Inspector on the Major Crime Unit – four months on from Field's arrest in January the same year.

"This case is unique in so many ways and is completely unlike any other investigation I have come across in my 31 years of policing," Glover said in 2020 as a documentary, Catching A Killer, about Field's crimes was released. "Added to that, Ben Field is unlike any other criminal I have ever encountered."

In October 2019, the same month Field was found guilty, Glover and his team were recognised nationally with a top detectives' award. The Detective Investigation of the Year award was won jointly by a team from Thames Valley Police, which spent more than two years under Operation Silk investigating child exploitation and serious sexual offences in the Oxford area; and Operation Quantum, a serious investigation by Hampshire Constabulary into historical child sexual abuse within the footballing community.

DCI Mark Glover still works with Thames Valley Police

With the total sentences handed out exceeding 100 years, Operation Silk, led by former DCI, now Principal Investigator, Mark Glover and DI Nicola Douglas, was deemed a significant success.

Since retiring from Thames Valley Police, Glover has since returned to the force as a civilian working as a principal investigator Senior Investigative Officer on the Major Crime Unit. "I continue to be PIP 3 accredited leading investigations in to murder and complex investigations in to non recent CSE (Child Sexual Exploitation)," he writes on his LinkedIn page.

"As an SIO I have a wealth of experience in investigating murder, unexplained deaths, manslaughter including care home neglect, rape and complex CSE enquiries, modern day slavery, kidnap, and all the issues associated to these types of investigations," Glover adds, "I am PIP 3 accredited, an experienced kidnap and extortion SIO, and a review officer. During my service I served on Major crime, CID (Criminal Investigation Department), SOCU (Serious and Organised Crime Unit), Drugs squad, Force surveillance, Specialist firearms officer, and as a test purchaser."

Glover visited the set of The Sixth Commandment during the filming of the BBC series – something the actor playing his character found "tremendously useful" – and was interested in learning how a film unit works. Cast members noted how the retired officer "seemed to be very interested in how a film unit works and he thought the level of realism, the sets and the art direction were impressive".

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Field, portrayed here by Éanna Hardwicke in the BBC series, was jailed in 2019 (BBC/Wild Mercury/Amanda Searle)

Discussing what is was like to play Glover, The Sixth Commandment actor Jonathan Aris said: "DCI Mark Glover is brilliant and has an amazing mind. He’s an incredibly dogged investigator and very impressive, really. He’s also softly spoken and underplays his status, motivating his team by quiet encouragement and suggestion rather than throwing his weight around.

"He has a great team and, like him, they all seem to be determined and relentless, doing everything for the right reasons for the families of the victims and for the truth, not - as far as one can tell - for personal glory. I was absolutely fascinated by the way in which the police had to turn this morass of information into a simple, clear legal story that a jury could understand in the hopes of bringing Ben Field to justice.

"The police got drawn into the case two years after Peter had died apparently of natural causes. So it's all retrospective, speculating about what might have happened, but in the absence of much forensic, concrete evidence, which is really hard for the police. There’s no longer a crime scene. They have to go back and go through Peter’s extensive journals, so it's a deep dive into research material as much as anything else. Mark and his team are doing extraordinary things that other people can't really understand."

Zoe Delaney