Murder appeal clouded by moral bias says barrister

Judges showed "moral disapproval" when they previously upheld the murder conviction of a former churchwarden, the Court of Appeal has heard.

Benjamin Field was jailed for at least 36 years in 2019 for killing lecturer Peter Farquar in Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire, after drugging him to make him think he was losing his mind in an attempt to gain his money and estate.

An appeal in 2021 against the conviction was rejected, but at a fresh hearing on Thursday Field's barrister David Jeremy KC argued there was no proof the pensioner was deceived into drinking drugged whisky.

He also said that the previous Court of Appeal decision wrongly applied the law due to "moral disapproval".

Jeremy told the London court that Field would have to have caused the 69-year-old to ingest the whisky or medication, as well as it being "less than fully voluntary" to have caused the death.

He said there was "no evidence that he was forced or deceived into consuming either".

The barrister added: "Mr Farquhar knew what he was being given and knew who he was being given it by."

By giving the pensioner the drink he did not make him ingest it, the barrister told the court.

Field, 35, from Olney, Buckinghamshire, appeared at the hearing via videolink from HMP Frankland in Durham.

The prosecution case at his trial at Oxford Crown Court was that Field secretly gave Farquhar tranquiliser drugs and spiked his whisky, hoping that his eventual death would look like suicide or an accident, while lawyers for Field denied intending to kill.

His crimes were the subject of a 2023 BBC drama called The Sixth Commandment, starring Timothy Spall as Farquhar.

He had also targeted one of the university lecturer's neighbours, Ann Moore-Martin, 83, a retired headteacher who he manipulated by writing messages on her mirrors purporting to be from God.

Field admitted fraudulently being in relationships with the pensioners as part of his plan to get them to change their wills.

He was found not guilty of conspiracy to murder Moore-Martin and an alternative charge of attempted murder.

Field's barrister said: "In March 2021, this court allowed its moral disapproval of what Field had done to deflect it from its duty to apply the law and upheld Field's conviction for doing something that on the evidence of that night he did not do, that is cause the death of Peter Farquhar."

The Crown Prosecution Service is opposing the appeal, with barrister David Perry KC telling judges that Field's conviction was safe.

He said that the question of how Farquhar's death was caused "cannot be assessed in the abstract", adding: "It has to be assessed in its own factual setting."

He continued: "The appellant was not a mere bystander or a mere spectator of Mr Farquhar's death at his own hands.

"He was, at all times, playing his part in causing the death both as a matter of common sense and as a matter of law."

The Court of Appeal will issue a decision in writing at a later date.

Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.