The Court of Appeal quashed the murder conviction of Benjamin Field, a former church warden, on Apr. 16 after ruling that jurors in his original trial were not properly directed over key evidence related to the death of university lecturer Peter Farquhar in Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire.
Field, 35, had been sentenced to at least 36 years in prison for the murder of Farquhar, who died in 2015. The case will now be retried following a decision by senior judges who found that instructions given to jurors at Oxford Crown Court regarding evidence about spiked whisky were defective.
Lord Justice Edis said that directions during the original trial “effectively withdrew from the jury the question of whether Mr Farquhar’s decision to drink the whisky had been voluntary.” He also confirmed that Field would remain imprisoned while an appeal by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is pending before the Supreme Court. The CPS has been granted permission to take what Lord Justice Edis described as an “unusual case” to Britain’s highest court.
Prosecutors at Field’s initial trial argued he manipulated and drugged Farquhar with whisky and medication so he could inherit his house and money. Jurors heard claims that Field suffocated Farquhar when he was too weak to resist and staged a scene suggesting death by alcohol consumption. However, last month Field’s lawyers told appeal judges there was “no evidence” their client forced or deceived Farquhar into consuming anything before his death.
Field was also convicted for fraud and burglary offences relating both to Farquhar and Ann Moore-Martin, an elderly neighbour whom he targeted through manipulation. He admitted being in fraudulent relationships with both pensioners as part of a plan involving changes to their wills but was acquitted on charges relating directly to Moore-Martin’s death.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission referred Field’s case under exceptional circumstances provisions allowing new appeals even without fresh evidence. His previous attempt at overturning his conviction failed in 2021; this time his lawyers argued legal errors influenced by moral disapproval led judges astray.
