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Britain's Most Evil Killers S07E02 (Sep 20 2022)
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00:00In November 2013, 67-year-old university lecturer Peter Farker
00:07invited one of his students to be a lodger at his home
00:10in the picturesque county of Buckinghamshire.
00:13Peter didn't know it yet,
00:15but his new tenant wanted more than just a room.
00:19He wanted the house,
00:21and he was determined to go to any lengths to get it.
00:24The seemingly ideal lodger was 22-year-old Ben Field,
00:29who soon became close friends with Peter.
00:32But behind closed doors,
00:34the master manipulator was slowly torturing his lecturer.
00:39He would drug him so that when Peter started to hallucinate
00:43or started to behave in an odd fashion,
00:46his friends actually started to believe that he was losing his mind.
00:52I actually used to be sort of competent.
00:58Of course. Of course.
01:01By October 2015,
01:03Peter Farker would be dead,
01:05murdered for money by his own tenant,
01:08but nobody suspected a thing.
01:11Maybe we were naive and just weren't thinking that way at all.
01:14Why would you?
01:15I don't...
01:16Why would you think that someone's going to murder your brother and all?
01:19The housemate from hell had outstayed his welcome.
01:23Ben Field would soon be unmasked as one of Britain's most evil killers.
01:28In October 2019, 26-year-old Ben Field was at Oxford Crown Court,
01:43charged with the murder of his friend and landlord, Peter Farker.
02:00The apparently godly church warden had slowly poisoned 69-year-old Peter
02:06over the course of two years.
02:09Field would then go on to defraud 82-year-old Ann Moore Martin,
02:14who lived on the same quiet road in Buckinghamshire.
02:18It was an almost unbelievable story for local reporter Sam Dean to cover.
02:24What was unique about this case or sort of made it stand out
02:28is the fact that Ben Field, who was in his early 20s
02:34when he committed these crimes,
02:36essentially pulled off the same scam with two elderly people,
02:42who, you know, he defrauded by essentially romancing.
02:49I can't think of many other cases like that.
02:53Field had fooled the whole community,
02:56reveling in his ability to control and manipulate
03:00the people of Maids Morton.
03:02Lara Busby, his girlfriend at the time,
03:05had no idea Field was living a double life.
03:09I was close to him and I have this sort of uncontrollable sense of guilt
03:16in the sense of I thought I knew him, I was around him a lot.
03:21I mean, I was with him inside Peter's house just a few weeks after
03:26he did what he'd done to Peter.
03:30And yet he showed me, he showed me nothing.
03:40This killer story begins in the Midlands in central England.
03:44Benjamin Field was born in Leicestershire Market Harborough.
03:50He was the middle child of upright and respectable parents.
03:53His father was a Baptist minister.
03:56His mum was a counselor for the Liberal Democrats.
04:00So, you know, a very sort of middle-class type family.
04:03I met his parents once in their home and it just seemed normal.
04:12His dad was quite happy, cheery.
04:14Sort of your usual sort of Baptist minister really.
04:18He would go to the library and one of the things that he loved to do
04:23was compare definitions of words from different dictionaries.
04:27His brother came up with a word to describe sort of how he navigated the world,
04:31which was interiority.
04:33So, yeah, sort of living just inside his own head.
04:38He was quite close to his brother.
04:40And I remember when his sister got married,
04:43um, he showed me all the pictures from the wedding.
04:47And he always seemed really happy and excited that she was getting married.
04:51And he seemed like he generally loved his family.
04:54He spoke about them very dearly.
04:56But there was always something slightly off about him.
05:00You couldn't put your finger on it.
05:02But beneath that apparently benign character
05:07lay something much darker.
05:11It would be many years before Lara would find out the truth
05:15about Ben Field's darker side.
05:18The pair were first introduced by mutual friends in 2012,
05:22whilst Field was studying at university.
05:26I didn't really talk to him a lot at the beginning stages.
05:29It wasn't really till I got a message from him
05:33saying that he wanted to take me out for a drink
05:35that I was like, oh, okay.
05:38The couple hit it off straight away.
05:41It just seemed like a normal, intelligent, young lad, really.
05:47He used to make me laugh with some useless facts
05:50that I don't think I'd ever need to know throughout my life,
05:54but, um, they were quite amusing.
05:57But 19-year-old Lara Busby
06:00wasn't the only one of Field's romantic interests.
06:04He had a girlfriend, uh, as a young man,
06:08but that didn't prevent him indulging in endless relationships
06:12on Craigslist and Grindr relentlessly, absolutely relentlessly.
06:18So that tells me about his need for stimulation
06:22and that kind of hedonistic part of his personality.
06:25And this thirst for stimulation would only intensify
06:30when, in his early 20s, Field was introduced
06:33to university lecturer 66-year-old Peter Farker.
06:38Well, Peter, I think I would describe him as an academic.
06:43He was, uh, very well, uh, thought of as a teacher,
06:48rose to the highest he could go as an English teacher.
06:54Although Peter adored being a teacher,
06:56he was no pushover inside or outside of the classroom.
07:01The stories are that, you know,
07:03some new person would arrive in the classroom
07:06and look at my brother who was small in size
07:10and, you know, sort of didn't look as though
07:13he'd be very effective.
07:15And they would try it on,
07:17and all the other classmates were just giggling,
07:19waiting to see what was going to happen.
07:21And he would just take this chapped pieces
07:25in front of them, and he never did it again.
07:29Peter Farker lived alone in the village
07:33of Maidsmorton, Buckinghamshire,
07:35and retired as head of English in 2004
07:38when he began writing novels.
07:41He, in fact, went on to write three novels
07:45and published them himself
07:47about the conflict of being a gay man
07:51surrounded by young men
07:53and not knowing how to deal with it.
07:56A sentiment from his fiction
07:59that was echoed in Peter's reality.
08:02Peter had spent his whole life
08:05knowing that he had sort of tendencies,
08:09but knowing also that they go completely against his faith.
08:14It was always said that Peter had been celibate.
08:17The only way he could cope with his inner conflict
08:21about being gay at the same time as being very upright
08:25Becoming increasingly isolated in his retirement,
08:29Peter soon found himself returning to the classroom
08:32as a guest lecturer of poetry
08:35where Ben Field was one of his students.
08:38Ben Field was different to most of the others
08:42in that although they took an interest
08:44and Peter would be pleased to answer questions
08:47and help them out,
08:48Ben seemed to be, cut by the rest, a bit more interested
08:52and certainly able to have a conversation
08:56on a higher level about poetry.
08:59I think Peter was very impressed with Ben
09:03pretty much as soon as they met.
09:06Very early on, he mentions lecturing him in his journals.
09:10The connection they'd formed inside the classroom
09:14soon led to a friendship blossoming outside
09:17where Field would begin his elaborate plan
09:20to play one of his many characters, the doting student.
09:25At some point, Ben started to go round to Peter's house
09:29and have dinner with him and play chess with him
09:31and they would discuss literature.
09:33Peter seemed very pleased to have met him
09:38and we were quite grateful actually that, you know,
09:41he was a friend who, you know, might have sort of
09:44stopped Peter just disappearing into himself.
09:48I think he was really, really lonely at one time
09:52and he was able to connect with Ben
09:54and Ben gave him everything that he needed.
09:56But Field wanted something in return
09:58and by November 2013, just a year after meeting him,
10:03Peter agreed to take the seemingly innocent student
10:06into his home as a lodger.
10:09Here was two guys who were both interested in poetry
10:12and interested in other things
10:14and I used to get, you know, sort of films out
10:17and watch them at night and have a glass of wine.
10:19And Peter made him dinner
10:21and Peter got to win at chess, you know,
10:23so I think that was the kind of the way in for Ben,
10:27sort of quelling the loneliness that Peter had.
10:31Field's girlfriend, Lara Busby,
10:34had been told a very different version
10:36of Field's relationship with Peter.
10:39Peter was essentially his landlord
10:42and he lodged in his house.
10:44But Ben, coming from the background that he did,
10:48you know, Baptist minister's son, church,
10:52I always thought that he probably wanted to care
10:56and make sure that Peter was okay.
10:59I don't think you could believe a single word
11:01he ever said to anybody.
11:02I don't think there was ever such a thing as truth.
11:04The only thing that was true to Ben Field was Ben Field.
11:09Field and Peter became closer and by Christmas of 2013,
11:15their friendship had developed into a relationship.
11:19Ben had started telling Peter Farkar that he loved him.
11:24I very much doubt that he did.
11:26But nevertheless, this was part of the confidence trick
11:30that he was about to inflict.
11:33And he thought he'd found someone
11:35that he could love someone to be there when he died
11:37because he was frightened of that.
11:39We were all saying,
11:40Oh, well, you know,
11:41Peter's money will go off to Ben, you know.
11:44It's a big joke.
11:45Because they seem to be, you know,
11:48getting together, if you like.
11:50But little did they know
11:52that this joke would become a reality
11:55and sooner than they thought.
11:57In January 2014, Field proposed to the now 68-year-old
12:02Peter Farkar.
12:04They'd been off to a gay vicar to get a blessing,
12:07which, um, Peter obviously felt very strongly.
12:11And I think he felt that this man's going to stay.
12:15But behind the facade of this loving relationship,
12:20Field was plotting to murder his newly betrothed.
12:32In March 2014, 22-year-old Ben Field
12:41and his 68-year-old university lecturer Peter Farkar
12:45had a blessing ceremony to show their commitment to one another.
12:51But the honeymoon period was brief.
12:53Field, originally a lodger in the house,
12:56began a campaign to nudge his way into Peter's will.
13:01And he began what's now known as gaslighting Farkar.
13:06He manipulated him in every conceivable way.
13:09He was drugging Peter with sedatives,
13:12and also with, um, hallucinogens as well.
13:16Um, and as part of that,
13:19he would move things around the house.
13:23So, you know, he would hide things,
13:25and Peter wouldn't be able to find them.
13:27He actually said in his journal,
13:29I'm losing my mind like King Lear.
13:32Peter's great asset was his mind.
13:34It was so sharp.
13:35And so the thought that his mind might be going
13:38was very frightening to him.
13:40But out in public, Field put on a very different show,
13:44professing to care for Peter during his mysterious illness.
13:48Nobody suspected any different.
13:51It was an easy role to play
13:53for the son of a Baptist minister.
13:56Field becomes a deputy church warden at Stow Church.
14:00He becomes everybody's friend.
14:03He said to me he liked to go to Stow Church with Peter,
14:06because it was something that Peter liked to do.
14:09He liked living on the edge,
14:11and he likes operating in this community,
14:14because he thinks that he's got them all under his thumb.
14:18In November 2014, Peter changed his will,
14:22leaving Field the freehold to his house,
14:25previously bequeathed to his brother, and 15,000 pounds.
14:32One of the interesting things that occurred
14:34was that Peter wrote.
14:35There's a stipulation in there
14:37that Ben had to live in the house for 24 months
14:42before he could inherit it.
14:45That does not satisfy Field.
14:48In fact, the reverse, it infuriates him.
14:52So what happens, of course,
14:55is that Field turns up the wick on the gaslighting.
14:59It gets worse and worse,
15:02and Farka is genuinely, a lot of the time, deeply confused.
15:07I started just to get a little bit concerned
15:09about what was going on with Peter.
15:11Not with Peter and Ben, but with Peter.
15:14And the GP, funnily enough, couldn't work out what it was.
15:19We went up to take him out for lunch.
15:21It was just not quite Peter, really.
15:23He was looking very poorly and ill.
15:26Whilst Peter was haunted by the anxiety
15:29of his unexplained illness,
15:32Field was writing explicit raps
15:35about his plot to murder him.
15:38He found rapping quite interesting
15:41because, obviously, he saw it as another form of poetry.
15:44Um, he used to write battle raps.
15:47So I'm killing this man.
15:49It's a fantasize.
15:51Fantasize about us.
15:53It's the f***ing tribe go against me.
15:56And now it's time for a crimson tide.
16:01And I'm the king.
16:03And I will reside on the throne.
16:06And you know that I'll kill this guy.
16:10Field wasn't the only one
16:12who wrote rhymes in their relationship.
16:15Peter wrote, um, a poem called Ben,
16:18an 18-line poem, I believe.
16:20Um, and it's, it's quite revealing.
16:25Deceptive and disloyal as a friend.
16:29Ben used people for unworthy ends.
16:34Willing to wound and happy to strike.
16:38Returning kindness with sneering dislike.
16:43Hurting others is his special pleasure.
16:47Cruel disregard.
16:49A happy leisure.
16:52By April 2015,
16:5518 months after Ben had moved in,
16:58Peter's health was declining to such an extent
17:01that he suffered the first of what would be many falls
17:04that would see him admitted to hospital.
17:08Throughout the summer of 2015,
17:11Ben was, was drugging Peter to quite a large extent
17:15where his, his falls and his seizures
17:17were becoming more commonplace.
17:19But nobody suspected Field to be anything other
17:23than the caring young man looking after Peter
17:26in his time of need.
17:28His girlfriend, Lara,
17:30was still completely unaware
17:32that Field was in a romantic relationship with Peter.
17:36Ben used to say to me that he was worried about Peter.
17:40He was forgetting things
17:44and he wasn't acting his usual self.
17:49He started to lose his, um, well, lose things.
17:53His phone got put in the fridge
17:54and then it got deleted.
17:56Everything was taken off his phone.
17:58It's great for Ben's here
18:00because he always seems to be able to help me out
18:02and know where things are.
18:03I was working at the time.
18:05If he was ill,
18:06I was grateful that somebody was there to help.
18:09Field presents himself as the hero in this case,
18:12but not only the hero, the martyr.
18:14So all of this, this taking on the role of the carer
18:18is a way of getting sympathy for himself
18:20and detracting from what he's actually doing.
18:23Field kept up this caring persona,
18:26attending appointments with Peter and his brother Ian
18:30to get to the bottom of his inexplicable symptoms.
18:34We went to a neurologist
18:36and they gave him these serious tests.
18:39He came out 100% fine.
18:42The neurologist said,
18:44Look, this is great, you know,
18:45but I don't know what's wrong with you.
18:47So we thought there's got to be something more than this.
18:50With no obvious explanation
18:52for Peter's declining health offered by the neurologist,
18:56Field was forced to change tack.
18:58Ben was suggesting that Peter was an alcoholic
19:01and he wasn't in agreement with that.
19:06He was described by his friend as a steady drinker,
19:10not a heavy drinker.
19:11But nonetheless, it wouldn't have taken too much for Ben
19:15to have implied that that was becoming more of a problem.
19:19When Ben knew he was going to be meeting friends
19:22or outside colleagues, he would drug him
19:26so that when Peter started to hallucinate
19:29or started to behave in an odd fashion,
19:31his friends actually started to believe
19:34that he was losing his mind.
19:36I was driving to work and he was walking his dog
19:41and he was stumbling all over the place
19:44and it was like he was drunk.
19:46And I remember thinking, you know,
19:50on my word, he's worse than I thought he was.
19:53So he's setting that particular identity now on Peter.
19:57He's the alcoholic.
19:59So he's gone from this eminent academic,
20:02this smart, intelligent guy, to the alcoholic.
20:07I was instructed to go back to the house
20:09and check and see if he'd, you know, loads of bottles.
20:13Peter had a big wine cellar.
20:16He'd numbered it all
20:17and he actually even wrote on it when it was due to be drunk
20:20and there were no empties or anything like that.
20:23I thought if it was an alcoholic, he would have drunk all that.
20:27There's no way.
20:28I had people from the church phoning me up
20:31to say he needs to do something
20:33because poor old Ben's, you know, suffering,
20:35having to do all this stuff for Peter.
20:37It hadn't occurred to me
20:39that Ben was doing what he was doing.
20:41I knew there was something not quite right.
20:44Maybe we were naive
20:45and just weren't thinking that way at all.
20:47Why would you, I don't know,
20:49why would you think
20:50that someone's going to murder your brother-in-law?
20:52But that's exactly what Field was planning to do.
20:56In September 2015, when Peter made the third
21:00and what would be the final change to his will,
21:03leaving Ben his house and £20,000,
21:06there was only one thing left to do.
21:09Peter would, you know, because of his drunkenness,
21:13he'd fall down the stairs.
21:16We later discovered that he probably got pushed down the stairs.
21:19Field kept telling the paramedics when they come to collect him
21:23after the most recent fall, you know,
21:25he would always say, you know, he's an alcoholic.
21:28In October 2015, Peter was admitted to hospital again,
21:33but this time he was discharged to a care home away from Field.
21:39He really made what seemed to be a miraculous recovery.
21:43Of course, we know now that that's because he wasn't being drugged
21:48by Ben at that point.
21:50Everything's okay now. It's wonderful. I've been healed, you know?
21:55And he phoned me up.
21:57He just said, I just can't believe it's over. The nightmare is over.
22:00But the nightmare wasn't over.
22:03When Peter rang Ian for some advice,
22:05he had no idea it would be their last conversation.
22:09And so he was having a chat then and what should you do about it?
22:12And so that was the last time we actually spoke to him
22:16and then he was gone the next day.
22:19Field's plan had played out just as he wanted
22:23and no one was any the wiser.
22:37On the 10th of October 2015,
22:40Peter Farker was discharged from the local care home
22:44after a seemingly miraculous recovery.
22:47The convalescent had been safe from the clutches
22:50of his 23-year-old lodger and tormentor, Ben Field,
22:54who'd been secretly drugging Peter over the course of two years.
22:59Peter's respite would be short-lived.
23:02Just two weeks later, his family received
23:05a devastating call from Field.
23:08We were in the car on the way down.
23:10We'd just been visiting our son Andrew
23:13and we got a phone call saying,
23:14you need to pull in.
23:15And Ian said, oh no, what's going on here?
23:18I thought, aye, aye, this is a bit strange.
23:22He doesn't phone me up much anyway.
23:24Then he told us in the car that Peter died
23:27and it was alcohol-poison.
23:28It was alcohol-related, that's what he said.
23:30Drunk himself to death.
23:33Well, I just thought, I can't believe that, really.
23:36I just cannot believe that.
23:39Ian and Sue Farker drove straight to Peter's house
23:43in Maidsmorton.
23:45The first thing we saw was the van to take him away.
23:50Sadly, I'm familiar with that sort of thing.
23:53We've had a few of them in the family.
23:56And the police were there and he was there.
23:59I said, oh, Ben, how are you?
24:03He said, oh, I'm absolutely fine, thanks.
24:05It was a very, very, very strange response
24:08for someone who had been very close to Peter
24:12and looking after him and helping him
24:14to just say, oh, yeah, I'm fine, thanks.
24:17I just turned into the lounge where Peter was sitting.
24:22Sure enough, he said my goodbyes.
24:26Trying to piece the thing together.
24:31I mean, there was a large bottle of whiskey
24:35and a glass sitting there.
24:39And, you know, my background is as an investigator.
24:45And, you know, I just knew there was stuff not right.
24:50Despite things not making sense for Ian,
24:53the coroner ruled that Peter's death was due
24:56to excessive alcohol.
24:58Peter's funeral was held on the 19th of November.
25:02He was buried with his mother at the church
25:05he and Ben Field had attended regularly.
25:08Ben actually came in the funeral car with us
25:11because we, obviously, he was Peter's big buddy.
25:14And so we thought, oh, yeah, we better invite him in.
25:16Field gave the eulogy at the funeral.
25:20It's a weird poem or something.
25:22Nobody really understood what he was talking about.
25:24Nothing related to Peter.
25:26Nothing about missing him.
25:28Nothing about what a great friend he was.
25:30Nothing was mentioned in there.
25:32There was no empathy at all in what he was saying.
25:35This really does speak volumes
25:37about the kind of criminal that Field is.
25:39It isn't the outcome, the eventuality,
25:42the inheriting money that he's interested in.
25:44It's the process of getting there.
25:46That's the bit that he enjoys.
25:48Ben Field had seemingly got away with it
25:51and got rich in the process.
25:54Peter had told me already he was leaving something to Ben.
25:58What it turned out to be was that he was leaving him access
26:03for his whole life to his house.
26:06Ben could do what he wanted with it,
26:08but I was the landlord, um, and that was a real shock.
26:13And he suddenly realized it wasn't quite the gift
26:15that he thought it was,
26:16so actually, Andrew and I negotiated with him,
26:21and we said, okay, we'll sell it,
26:24but you get half and we get half.
26:26The house was sold,
26:28and Field inherited over 100,000 pounds.
26:32Everyone moved on, including Field,
26:35but he didn't have to move far to find his next victim.
26:40No-one suspected that Peter's death
26:44was anything but natural.
26:46Well, Field immediately simply diverted energy again.
26:53Just three doors down the same road
26:56lived 83-year-old Ann Moore Martin,
26:59a retired headteacher who'd been interested
27:01to now 26-year-old Ben Field by Peter Farker.
27:06She used to live with her mother in the house.
27:09Her mother died.
27:10She now lives there alone,
27:12and although she's very close to her niece,
27:14she's also lonely, just as Peter Farker was lonely.
27:18He was bombarding her
27:20with all of this romantic attention quite intensely,
27:23and it's very difficult not to get caught up in that,
27:26not to start believing what this person is saying to you,
27:30because it's quite flattering.
27:32He manipulated her and persuaded her
27:35that he was the man for her.
27:37He suggested that she watch certain films
27:40which were about older women falling in love with younger men,
27:43you know, planting that idea
27:45that they could have a real loving relationship.
27:48We often see with abusers like Field that the accelerated pace
27:52at which their relationships develop,
27:54they're getting their feet under the table very quickly
27:56in order to get into a position
27:58where they can really take advantage.
28:00The 9th of May 2016,
28:03six months after the death of Peter Farker,
28:06Field made the first of what would be many requests for Ann's money.
28:11He decides to tell her that he needs a new car.
28:16He persuades her to give him 4,400 pounds to buy a new one.
28:20Ever resourceful, he goes out and rents a car for a day
28:25and drives it to the house in Manaparte to show her the new car
28:29she's bought for him.
28:32He then returns the car to the rental company and pockets the money.
28:36Confident from this success,
28:39Field moved on to his next ploy for cash in the summer of 2016.
28:45He told Ann that his brother had a serious kidney disorder
28:49and that he needed this money to keep him alive ultimately.
28:53He also said that his parents couldn't afford the dialysis machine
28:57and he persuaded her to give him over 26,000 pounds
29:01for a dialysis machine.
29:03But that was made even worse in that when she gave him the money,
29:07she had to liquidate some of her assets
29:10and to do that she had to telephone the bank.
29:12He dialed the number, he called the bank
29:15and then he passed the phone over to her
29:18so that she could complete that transaction.
29:20That's how manipulative and how controlling he was.
29:24The manipulation and coercion only increased
29:28as Field exploited Ann Moore Martin's strong Catholic faith
29:33over the course of the next six months.
29:37At one point, Field even goes to the extent
29:43of giving Ann Moore Martin a large framed photograph of himself.
29:48And it had captions, I am always with you.
29:51He started leaving messages on her mirror to say,
29:56leave Ben your house, you know, leave him money.
30:00Messages purportedly from God in sort of biblical language,
30:06they weren't actually Bible quotes
30:08because of course he needed them to be about him.
30:11Field is so confident that Ann is not going to tell anybody
30:15about these messages because Ann is a smart woman.
30:20She has a very strong faith, but she also realizes
30:23that other people don't have a faith that is as strong as hers.
30:26So, so this kind of information being presented to them
30:29is likely to be met with some skepticism.
30:32On the 22nd of December, 2016,
30:37just as he'd done with Peter Farker, Field convinced Ann Moore Martin
30:42to change her will, leaving the house to him.
30:46A month later, she was admitted to hospital.
30:50Ben was suspected of drugging her,
30:52and so she had, ultimately, she had a seizure.
30:55But because she had that break in hospital,
30:59she was able to take stock.
31:01Ann Moore Martin could consolidate and think about
31:03what was happening.
31:05When her niece rushed to Ann Moore Martin's side in hospital
31:09and found out what had happened,
31:11she was greatly concerned.
31:14Her niece had some suspicions beforehand.
31:17I mean, who wouldn't?
31:19You know, a 26-year-old apparently in a, you know,
31:23a romantic relationship with an 83-year-old.
31:26She started to pick up on some of the warning signs,
31:29and I think she may have realized that her aunt
31:32was actually being manipulated.
31:34Her suspicions were confirmed during a chance encounter
31:38with Field whilst gathering some belongings
31:41at her aunt's house in Manor Park.
31:44Effectively, Ben Field is treating it as his own,
31:46that he is in charge.
31:50Now, this is very, very worrying.
31:54Her niece smells a rat and calls the police.
32:00Subsequently, what that led to was the police speaking
32:05to, um, Ann Moore Martin's solicitor,
32:08who just coincidentally was also a solicitor for Peter Farker.
32:13I mean, two houses within literally yards of each other,
32:19same young man, same beneficiary,
32:22same elderly person changing their will.
32:25If by chance they'd had different solicitors,
32:29maybe Field would have got away with it.
32:33Maybe, but they didn't.
32:36And so the first chink in this story begins to appear.
32:42No-one had suspected him of killing Peter Farker,
32:47but a pattern of fraudulent behavior had raised suspicions.
32:52And police were concerned another elderly resident
32:55in this quiet village may turn up dead.
33:08After changing her will in December 2016,
33:12leaving the two-faced toy boy her house,
33:1583-year-old Ann Moore Martin was admitted to hospital
33:19with a seizure.
33:21Ben Field, now 26, had been accused of drugging
33:24the retired headteacher,
33:26and he was prohibited from visiting her in hospital.
33:30When police arrested him on suspicion of fraud
33:33and administering poison,
33:35he came up with an elaborate cover story.
33:38He told me that he was looking,
33:41or helping looking after this lady from Bible Group,
33:44and because he'd helped look after her,
33:48she'd apparently put something in the will for him,
33:51which he said he didn't know about,
33:53and the family weren't very happy about it.
33:56And she suddenly felt ill,
33:58and they made an allegation that he's poisoned her.
34:03And I just thought to myself,
34:05how could this person poison anyone?
34:08Detectives were asking the same question
34:11when they discovered bags of white powder
34:13and detailed journals at Field's house.
34:17But they would need more evidence for a conviction,
34:20and Field was released on bail.
34:23Convinced that Peter Farker had been targeted in the same way,
34:27police had the difficult task of informing Peter's family
34:31of their suspicions.
34:35We got phoned by the police,
34:37and she just said,
34:38we think your brother was murdered.
34:40I went, what?
34:43And we think he was murdered by Benfield.
34:47It was just like a dream. It just didn't seem real.
34:50It took me a second or two to sort of,
34:52and then everything just fitted into place.
34:55And very little of what they discovered surprised me.
35:01The intensity and the depth of it,
35:03and the way this man had calculatingly attacked
35:08every interest in my brother's life
35:10to make it work for his choice of outcome.
35:15But they needed to find the evidence.
35:18Forensic pathologist Dr Brett Lockyer
35:21was brought into the investigation at an early stage.
35:26When the police approached me,
35:27they had a very high level of suspicion
35:29that Peter had not died in the manner
35:31in which Ben suggested he had.
35:33The police were fed this story by Ben
35:36that Peter had died as a result of, um, his alcoholism.
35:39But the intelligence wasn't there to suggest that.
35:42During their investigations,
35:45the police learned that Peter had written meticulous diaries
35:48throughout his life, and his brother Ian had kept them.
35:52Peter had written some things, like,
35:55and at once, occasionally, he was like,
35:57does he really love me?
35:58You know, is he just in for something else?
36:01So it had occurred to Peter about Ben.
36:04When the diaries were cross-referenced
36:06with the journals received from Fields' home,
36:09they told two halves of the same story.
36:13The fact that Ben kept a diary in the first place
36:16was probably his downfall.
36:17There was correlation between what Ben was saying
36:20that he had done.
36:21In shorthand, he was indicating
36:23that he'd given Peter certain drugs.
36:25And then Peter, who kept very fastidious diaries,
36:29was describing the symptoms that you'd expect
36:31from taking those drugs.
36:33So all of that together was very compelling.
36:37He planned meticulously and wrote it all down, obviously,
36:41which coincided with Peter's diary.
36:44I had a lovely meal tonight, but I felt quite ill afterwards,
36:47and you sort of think, hmm, now we know why.
36:50But in order to get a conviction,
36:53investigators wanted forensic proof that Peter had been drugged.
36:58The only way of knowing how Peter had died
37:02would be to do an exhumation.
37:04But the exhumation wasn't only just to find the cause of death,
37:07it was also to obtain as much evidence as possible
37:11from the body to support the police's theory
37:15that Ben Field had at hand in Peter Farker's death.
37:18Peter's exhumation was hard, very difficult,
37:24especially with Ian's mum being in the same grave.
37:28We wanted to find out what had been going on,
37:30so we wanted the truth.
37:32We took so many samples from Peter Farker,
37:35but really the helpful thing in this case
37:37was also the hair analysis.
37:39So the hair sample had indicated that Peter
37:42had not only been subjected to his own prescribed medication,
37:46but he'd also been given illegal or illicit drugs,
37:50which linked up with Ben Field's internet purchase history.
37:55The hair samples proved that Peter had been drugged
37:58over a long period of time.
38:01You can work it out almost till the month.
38:04Absolutely astonishing.
38:06Investigators also had to disprove Ben Field's claims
38:10that alcohol dependency was behind Peter's death.
38:14The liver was reviewed not only by myself
38:16but also by a specialist liver pathologist,
38:19and we found no indication that the liver showed any sign
38:22of any alcohol problem.
38:24So that would go against what the story
38:26that Ben Field was trying to portray.
38:29And they came back and said, we got him.
38:32Dr Lockyer was also able to come up with a possible theory
38:39about how Peter really died.
38:42I had reviewed the original body-worn video footage of Peter
38:46when he was allegedly found deceased in his property,
38:49and I could identify that next to him on the sofa
38:52was a rather large pillow.
38:55And I think the likelihood is that,
38:57with Peter being in this intoxicated state,
39:00that Ben had then used a pillow to smother him,
39:04hence the reason why the post-mortem
39:07didn't show any signs of injury at that time.
39:09Police began building a case against Field
39:13and went on to find harrowing footage
39:16of the torture Peter had endured on Field's phone.
39:20I'm actually used to be sort of competent.
39:28When we look at the video of Peter,
39:30there is some dialogue in there,
39:32and Peter's saying at one point,
39:34I used to be sort of competent.
39:36And then Field's voice comes in and goes, yes, of course.
39:40You know, in this kind of fake, sympathetic way
39:43that is really, really disturbing and really haunting,
39:46because he's the one that's brought all of this about.
39:49Of course. Of course.
39:51I think he probably got a kick out of it.
39:55Like, he got a kick out of everything,
39:57you know, the power thing.
39:58On the 16th of January 2018, police rearrested Field.
40:03He was charged with the murder of Peter Farker,
40:08the attempted murder of Ann Moore Martin,
40:11two fraud charges for each of their homes,
40:15and two additional fraud charges
40:17for the dialysis machine and the car.
40:20He pled guilty to fraud charges.
40:23Of course, he pled not guilty to murder and attempted murder.
40:27The trial at Oxford Crown Court
40:30began on the 30th of April 2019 and lasted 77 days.
40:36It was kind of his stage, really.
40:39You know, he had obviously been described
40:41by a psychiatrist as a sort of narcissist
40:44and, you know, that certainly came across in court.
40:49It was appalling, the way he spoke about those people in the trial.
40:55Appalling, you know, I mean, just so disrespectful.
41:00When he said, I hated Peter, I didn't like him at all,
41:02it was all just to get money, get his money,
41:05it was just horrible.
41:08Field's family, friends, and the entire community
41:11were horrified at his brazen confessions,
41:14detailing how he conned Peter and Ann.
41:18I just went into complete and utter shock,
41:20because I had this person in my life
41:24that I'd brought into my life, brought into my family's life,
41:28and I thought he was this genuine, intelligent, caring person.
41:38But I realised that all of a sudden, I knew nothing about him.
41:43And it was like the Ben that I knew, the Ben that I was in love with,
41:49had just died in that moment.
41:53His mum just spent the whole time in tears, as far as I can see.
41:57I don't know whether it's worse to find that your brother's been murdered
42:00or to find out that your son is a murderer.
42:04Horrifyingly, during the trial, it was revealed by the prosecution
42:08that Ben had compiled a list of potential victims,
42:12which he'd named his client list.
42:15There were 100 people on that list.
42:18And by his own admittance, in court,
42:20he said that they were all people that he was considering defrauding.
42:25Um, and his brother was on that list.
42:28His grandparents were on that list.
42:30On the 18th of October, 2019,
42:34four years after Peter's death,
42:36Ben Field was found guilty of his murder.
42:39He was convicted on all four fraud charges,
42:43but was shockingly acquitted of attempting to murder Anne Moore Martin.
42:48He was sentenced to 36 years in prison.
42:52The reason that he got the minimum of 36 years
42:54is because he actually inflicted torture and pain
42:59and had premeditated the acts against these two individuals.
43:04Psychopath was what I, um, thought he was.
43:10So he just had no empathy about anything,
43:14especially for his big friend, Peter.
43:19We had a celebration of Peter after the trial and everything.
43:26And afterwards, there were lovely conversations about Peter.
43:33People just queued up to tell me how much he'd influenced their lives.
43:38Anne Moore Martin died of natural causes before seeing justice served.
43:47The sad thing about Anne Moore Martin's case is that she did, you know,
43:53become aware of what Ben had done to her before she passed away.
43:57You know, she alluded to the fact, you know, she said out loud,
44:03you know, how could this happen to me?
44:05I'm such an intelligent woman.
44:08Although he didn't steal any money from his former girlfriend,
44:11Lara Busby, scars remain.
44:15You do keep going through memories in your head thinking,
44:18why, why couldn't I have seen something before?
44:23And then maybe he wouldn't have been able to do what he did.
44:26There can be no doubt in my mind that had Field not been stopped,
44:33he would have gone on to kill again and again and again.
44:38He is an angel of death.
44:41I would say that he is completely evil.
44:44Yeah, his life, his mind somewhere along the line
44:47has been taken over by the devil.
44:51Ben Field presented as a kind and caring man,
44:56helping people in the community.
44:58But he preyed on their vulnerabilities for his own ends.
45:03Through the veneer of respectability he'd concocted,
45:06he manipulated, humiliated and tortured his victims,
45:10enjoying the power he held over them.
45:13That makes Ben Field one of Britain's most evil killers.
45:21to 이거는 and walk.
45:25To TRV www. findet by 얼마,
45:28where there are people at MIT's relationship
45:29two efforts in humanURSE internet 바 Puisque
45:30together we gotta be killed two efforts.
45:32There was no change in the relationship
45:33in!」
45:34with all spirits to the power of security
45:35in our Appeals.
45:37And our 친구's response is that
45:39everything always goes wrong to our peers to protect people.
45:40Yes, he is a beast to protect the pressure of food
45:40resection to save people in Jake's camp,
45:42in your adversaries there's no other thing,
45:43there isn't someone you think of.
45:43He takes care to that.
45:46And his crew couldn't get Jenny from this role
45:46and we'd have very much better.
45:48And anyway,
45:49it was more bananas.