20/20 Britain's Most Notorious Crime Investigations (2026) s01e03 Episode Script

1
[banging on door]
Ben Field. This is the police,
come to the door.
-[banging on door]
-Police!
Police.
Kitchen, clear.
Living room, clear.
Police, open the door.
Ben Field, I'm arresting you
on the suspicion of the murder
of Peter Farquhar,
the murder of Ann Moore Martin.
Ben Field is the most extraordinary person
I've come across in years of reporting
and writing about crime.
I'm Benjamin Luke Field.
Benjamin has made a statement.
I, Benjamin Field,
did not murder Ann Moore Martin.
Very unusual for a young man
in his early 20s
to be having sex with a woman aged 81.
We were investigating a double murder
for financial gain.
I did not murder Peter Farquhar.
Ben thought he could beat the system.
What we needed was a smoking gun.
[soft music playing]
[Pete Bordass]
Maids Moreton is a very picturesque,
very sleepy village.
A fair few people in the village
attended church regularly.
Maids Moreton was not a place
where crime happened.
I don't think I ever came up here,
apart from for this case.
[line ringing]
-[line clicks]
-Hello, what's happening there?
I think she may well have had
a similar sort of seizure
as she had last time.
A seizure?
The person who was here the last time,
has been here today.
So we're concerned that this person
may be administering something.
You're concerned that whoever
has been in today to see her
has possibly given her something?
Yes.
[eerie music playing]
[Bordass] In February 2017,
an elderly lady called Ann Moore Martin
collapsed at home.
She was found by a visitor
who quickly called emergency services.
Help me, help me.
Ann Moore Martin was rushed
to the hospital by paramedics.
[sirens wailing]
Shortly afterwards,
I was contacted by her niece.
She said, "My aunt is in her 80s
"and she has a very young boyfriend.
"And she's left her house in her will
to her boyfriend."
Little did we know
that this would be the start
of the largest case
I've ever investigated.
[ominous music playing]
My name's David James Smith.
I'm a journalist and author
and I wrote a book about this case.
Ann Moore Martin had been
a head teacher in a primary school.
She was quite long retired.
She'd never married
and she'd never had children.
Church was very important to her.
My mum and Ann Moore Martin
became friends through church.
She was like a grandmother to me
and I felt like I was her grandson
in many ways.
I remember Ann
as being a kind and loving person.
She had so much love to give to myself,
to my mum, to people around her.
[Bordass] The first thing we did
was go speak to Ann in hospital.
Ann told me about two years ago,
she'd met a young friend
through her neighbour.
[Smith] Ben Field was this quite handsome
young man in his early 20s.
He seemed like a really genuine
true person.
He came from a seemingly very respectable
middle-class family.
His father was a Baptist minister.
And Ben, who became
a deputy church warden himself,
would occasionally deliver sermons.
-[birds chirping]
-[foreboding music playing]
Good morning.
Can you all hear me?
Now,
establish in your own mind
what "good" consists of.
If what you believe is too odd or distinct
from legally enforced norms,
this isn't a problem.
Live as your conscience dictates,
and with the consequences.
[Bordass] Over time,
the relationship developed
from just a casual friendship
and became more of
a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship.
[Smith] Very unusual for a young man
in his early 20s
to be having sex with a woman aged 81.
Ben Field essentially love-bombed
Ann Moore Martin
with letters and notes.
And really telling her
that he was falling in love with her.
Ann Moore Martin
had this little shrine to Ben.
He'd given her a photograph of himself
and there was a caption underneath
saying, "I am always with you."
[Dan] My mum mentioned
that she was seeing this man
who was in her life.
But, to be honest, none of us really knew
much about their relationship.
[ominous music playing]
[Smith] She was talking on the phone
to a friend one day,
saying she hadn't been feeling too well
and saying
how much Ben had been looking after her.
She said he'd given her a white powder.
She said it made her sleep really well,
better than anything
she'd bought over the counter.
She told me she would quite often wake up
and go about her morning routine
and see a message on a mirror.
Some of these messages
were quite explicit.
My mum and I, we came to pick up Ann
to take her to church.
On the inside of her front door,
there was a mirror,
and the mirror has this writing on it.
[eerie music playing]
The message said,
"Save Him or be judged for His death.
"Give Him life or He will take it."
I took a picture
because it struck me as very sinister
and very threatening.
And creepy, actually.
[Bordass] One of them said,
"Leave the house to Ben.
"Do not leave it to Ann Marie."
Ann's niece.
This seems pretty suspicious to me.
[Dan] We tried to explain to Ann
that this is someone
drawing on her mirror.
I think she was vulnerable
and she had been manipulated.
She had been led to believe
that the messages on the mirrors
were some kind of divine sign from God.
It wasn't just Ann Moore Martin's house
that Ben was after.
He'd also persuaded her to gift him
some quite substantial sums of money.
Ben came to her one day very distressed,
talked about how his brother
had got some terrible kidney condition
that required a dialysis machine.
Ben: I'm just gonna hand you over to Ann.
Hello,
I'm thinking of withdrawing
all my accounts.
Money held in my accounts.
I have a very dear friend, who's
the brother of another very dear friend,
and he is extremely ill.
In life, one must not be selfish
and keep everything to yourself.
After that, she arranged to give Ben
£27,000 for this dialysis machine,
which was all, of course,
a complete fiction.
[Bordass] While Ann was in hospital
[indistinct radio chatter]
we arrested Ben on suspicion of fraud
and administering a noxious substance.
When we searched Ben's house,
we found sedatives
which could well have been
the white powder given to Ann.
[Smith] The police had the suspicion
that he may have been trying
to get Ann Moore Martin's house
for himself.
But Ben Field wouldn't admit to anything.
So, at this stage, there was
no evidential basis for charging him.
[Bordass] We had to release him on bail,
but on the condition
that he stayed away from Ann.
Ann's niece had managed
to change the will with Ann
back to where it was,
without Ben benefiting.
[foreboding music playing]
One day, her niece called me and said,
"Ann's just had another seizure
"and I don't expect her to live."
-[sombre music playing]
-[Dan] When Ann passed,
the things I thought about
more than anything
were the times that we had together
when I was a child.
Going to the woods for walks with her dog,
going and staying in her house.
Yeah, that's how I remember Ann.
[Bordass] She was a very smart,
funny woman.
It was very sad to see her die.
[Smith] It wasn't until
Ann Moore Martin's death
and the police investigation
into Ben Field
that the police began to have concerns
that perhaps Ann Moore Martin wasn't
the only person that Ben had harmed.
[Bordass] We were notified of a concern
from a local solicitor.
And the solicitor said,
"I've assisted with changing Ann's will
"to benefit Ben Field.
"And I remember, a couple of years ago,
"changing another person's will
to benefit Ben Field."
[ominous music playing]
We were investigating a double murder
for financial gain.
The Ten Commandments.
I'm looking for one in particular.
What commandment am I thinking of?
Thou shalt not kill.
[foreboding music playing]
[line clicks]
Ambulance emergency.
Is the patient breathing and conscious?
Not conscious, no.
No, it's not looking good at all.
Peter? Peter?
Okay, what's the address there, please?
Manor Park, Maids Moreton.
[Smith] The cleaner for Peter Farquhar
arrived at his home
and the curtains were drawn in the lounge.
And he was sitting slumped on the sofa.
She dialled 999 and the ambulance arrived
and declared him dead very quickly.
The cleaner's next call was to Ben Field.
[line ringing]
Ben and Peter lived together
in Peter's house.
I was coming down the M1
when we got a call from Ben.
It was to say that Peter had died.
[eerie music playing]
I said, "Say that again."
It was shattering news.
I said, "What happened?"
"It was alcohol poisoning."
I said, "I can't believe that."
[Bordass] There was a whisky bottle found
on a side table next to Peter.
Ben had told police
that Peter was 69 years old,
and had effectively drunk
most of a bottle of whisky,
enough to kill someone.
[Ian] We arrived at the house.
We had almost a cheery welcome from Ben.
"How are you, Ben?"
expecting him to be distraught.
But, no. "I'm fine."
It was almost as though
he didn't have a care in the world.
[sombre music playing]
So I went in and I sat with my brother.
For a little while, just
You know. [chuckles]
I just spoke to him
although he wasn't there,
just saying I thought
he'd been a great brother.
[Susan Farquhar] I didn't actually go in.
I wanted to remember Peter as he was,
and not sitting [exhales]
dead on the sofa.
[mutters indistinctly]
[exhales]
[Smith] Peter Farquhar was a really quite
eminent retired English teacher.
He'd worked at two of the best
private schools in England,
Manchester Grammar School and Stowe.
One of the most beautiful schools
in England.
[Peter] I think that the AS is a bad exam,
and I do not think that it's right
that pupils should be examined
in three consecutive years.
[Richard Searby] He was brilliant
at making you believe
you could do better than you thought.
We all came to love and respect him.
Because he always put us first.
After Peter died, I went to see
the solicitor about his will.
And was surprised to find that his house,
which was probably worth,
I don't know, £200,000 to £300,000
It wasn't a full gift to Ben,
but he had the right
to stay there as long as he wanted.
So I decided that the best thing to do
was sell the house
and split the proceeds with Ben.
[Smith] It wasn't really for
another 18 months after Peter had died
that the police became suspicious
of the circumstances of his death.
[intriguing music playing]
[man] Senior Investigating Officer
for the investigation
into the deaths of Peter Farquhar
and Ann Moore Martin.
[Smith] This is a really unusual,
exceptional case
because there was
a fly-on-the-wall film crew
sitting alongside the police inquiry.
They've got this unique privileged access.
While I was writing
my book about this case,
the documentary was really important
in terms of my own understanding
of the case
and how the investigation unfolded.
[man] It all relates to a little road
called Manor Park,
which is part of a little village
called Maids Moreton.
[Smith] What's really striking
is the intent and seriousness
of everyone in the room.
It's clear that they're gonna
pull all the stops out to get a result.
[Bordass] Because of my relationship
with Ann,
when Thames Valley declared this
a major incident investigation,
I was seconded along with the case
to the Major Crime Team.
Very early on, our hypothesis was
that Ann Moore Martin and Peter Farquhar
had been given drugs,
made them feel unwell,
hallucinate and ultimately
met their demise.
But what we needed was a smoking gun.
[sombre music playing]
I felt a deep commitment to finding out
what had happened to Ann.
And Peter.
We started off by contacting
any neighbours,
any family members, any friends.
I went and spoke with his brother,
and one of the first things Ian said was,
"Peter kept a journal.
"And I have them."
All numbered, all chronologically dated.
But the last three journals were missing.
[Ian] Everything he did,
everywhere he went,
was in these journals.
And every conversation he had,
I looked back and found the time
when we'd had a big old argument
and that was there.
And in graphic detail.
[ethereal music playing]
[Peter] I have so much to thank God for.
But despite my many friends
and involvements,
there is a black hole where
strong a emotional relationship should be.
I just wish that the Lord
would help me through
this great constant
and intractable difficulty
and allow me to live
more effectively for Him.
[Foreshew-Cain] Peter was struggling with
his sexuality and his loneliness, really.
[sombre music playing]
Peter had been seeing a counsellor,
and the counsellor decided
he might come to see me,
as a priest, as a Christian,
as a gay man,
as a way of integrating his faith
and his sexuality together.
[Richard] He had this one missing element.
He wanted to be in love with somebody.
He wanted a partner.
We know now, of course, this was
very much part of his vulnerability.
[Ian] After he'd retired from teaching,
he went to Buckingham University.
And he lectured in poetry.
[hopeful music playing]
[Peter] Gave my lecture on Coleridge
at the university in the afternoon.
They were unresponsive,
except for one clever, enthusiastic lad,
Ben Field.
He is a delightful young man.
[Ian] He mentioned to me
that there was a student there
who really is very interesting
in terms of talking about poetry.
And that was Ben.
[intriguing music playing]
[Foreshew-Cain] For Peter,
Ben fitted a kind of fantasy model
of the kind of man
that he'd be attracted to.
Ben presented as intellectual, charming.
He was bright, he was religious.
[Ian] When I first met Ben
[laughs] I thought,
"He's very young for Peter
"to be as closely involved
as a friendship."
And I just wondered
if there was something more to it.
[Susan] His relationship with Ben changed
from just being a master to help Ben
to a bit more of a relationship going on.
[Peter] We then drove to Dunkery Beacon.
[joyful music playing]
We embraced and hugged each other tightly
on that remote, damp, misty hilltop.
I felt unbelievably happy,
and so clearly did Ben.
I had not thought it possible.
God is so good to me.
[music fades]
[woman vocalizing]
[Foreshew-Cain]
I got an email from Peter
telling me that he and Ben
wanted to have a betrothal ceremony,
and asking me if I would be prepared
to be part of the service
and offer some prayers.
It was a private ceremony,
it was just the three of us and God.
Ben seemed very clear
about how he felt about Peter
and what he was getting himself into
in a relationship with a much older man.
I think that, for Peter, the betrothal day
with Ben in church before God
was probably one of the great highlights
of his life.
-[ethereal music playing]
-[Peter] It was a wonderful moment,
to cement before God
the sharing of our lives.
To have this wonderful young man
as my life partner until I die.
We exchanged the crosses
as tokens of love and fidelity.
[foreboding music playing]
Once Ben moved in,
we didn't really hear so much from Peter.
[Ian] Peter started complaining
about memory loss.
He also complained about losing things,
which was completely unlike him as well.
He just found that he was getting visions.
He'd suddenly see
He described it as "blobs"
floating in front of him.
He was worried that it could be
a form of dementia.
He ended up going into hospital
because he had falls down the stairs,
bruised face.
He was deteriorating quite a lot.
A lot of time, he spent up in bed,
which was not like Peter at all.
[hesitates] I just,
I feel I am so
dependent.
[exhales]
It's such a strange world the whole thing
because on the one hand
[hesitates] I'm actually
used to be sort of
competent.
Ben: Of course. Of course.
[eerie music playing]
[Smith] Ben filmed this clip of Peter
propped up in bed,
and he seems really confused.
He just looks like
he's really very seriously ill.
I was
I was suspicious
there was something going on,
and in the whole thing,
I felt
this relationship with Ben,
there was something false about it.
[Smith]
It's a very poignant part of this story,
that Peter Farquhar went out
and bought a double bed
for the first time in his life,
to make room for Ben.
And Ben was also now
having a sexual relationship
with Peter's 81-year-old neighbour,
Ann Moore Martin.
[foreboding music playing]
We suspected Peter
hadn't died a natural death.
So we needed to carry out
a second autopsy.
There's no other option at that point
than to exhume his body.
[Smith] It's not a very straightforward
process, setting about an exhumation.
You need permission
from the Church of England,
and, of course, the police wanted
the permission of Peter's family.
[Ian] They persuaded me that
they would be able to get some evidence
because they'd be able
to examine Peter's body.
And I wasn't Well. [exhales]
Who would be happy with that?
But by then, I was convinced
that Ben had been involved in this
and I thought that I need to
I want to get him found out for this.
[Bordass] While this was all going on,
Ben was still living at Peter's house.
If Ben found out that we had dug Peter up
and conducted a second autopsy,
he would know
that we were looking into his death.
So we had an operation
to secretly exhume Peter's body
in the middle of the night.
[sirens wailing]
[Dr Brett Lockyer] One of the things which
is very difficult about exhumations
is that you don't know
what condition the body is in.
But I knew, as soon as I saw Peter's body
laying there inside the coffin
that we were going to be able
to get some evidence from him.
It's really unusual for there to be
an exhumation in a murder case.
And then it's even more unusual
for the camera to be
inside the pathologist's room
as the postmortem's taking place.
[Lockyer] Can you get another pot ready?
A bigger one because
I think we've still got stomach content.
When they were filming me,
I was really kind of taken aback
by the fact there were still
stomach contents present.
[lab assistant] Does it smell of whisky?
[Lockyer] I can smell alcohol.
-Really?
-Yeah.
It's really extraordinary to see
this vital moment in the investigation
as the autopsy,
the postmortem takes place,
the second postmortem
on Peter's exhumed remains.
The stomach content was analysed
and this showed the alcohol level
to be 277 milligrams per decilitre.
Now, that isn't a level
which can cause death on its own.
So there must have been something else
which caused his death.
Thank you. Right, so hair.
Very well preserved. Very well preserved.
[Smith] The camera crew are there,
sensitively covering
the recovery of important evidence
that will assist the police investigation.
[Lockyer] When you take a medication,
those drugs are interred into your hair.
So the hair can be analysed
to see not only what drugs
you've been exposed to,
but also when you may have been
exposed to them.
A bit like the rings in a tree stump.
When the hair sample was recovered,
it was submitted to
a very specialist laboratory in France.
But because of the nature
of the examination,
that whole process takes months.
[Smith]
The police were really on tenterhooks
because they might finally
get some answers
as to what exactly had been going on
in the last months of Peter's life.
[tense music playing]
This case was all about
building the picture,
putting the puzzles together.
Amazingly, the police officer
who attended Peter's death
seized the glass
that was on the floor next to him.
And we found Ben's fingerprint
on the inside of the glass.
That really does suggest that Ben
was there at the time Peter had died.
Even though we were still waiting
on the results of the hair analysis,
we had enough evidence at that point
to re-arrest Ben,
this time on suspicion of murder.
[foreboding music playing]
[banging on door]
Ben Field. This is the Police,
come to the door.
-[banging on door]
-Police!
Police.
Kitchen, clear.
Living room, clear.
[Bordass] When Ben heard
the knock of police on the door,
he jumped out the back window.
Police, open the door.
Turn around and put your hands
behind your back.
[Bordass] We found Ben half dressed,
in a garden shed, hiding from police.
I think it shows a guilty conscience.
[officer] What's your first name, please?
-Benjamin.
-Benjamin?
So primary offense murder, was it?
[officer 2] Murder. Yeah, okay.
[Smith] He knows the cameras are there
watching him.
His reaction to being accused of murder
is really like he's in
a doctor's waiting room or something.
I'm expecting this will be a dull time.
Do you have any kind of books or stuff
lying around that I could
We'll certainly have a look to see
if we can get you something to read, yeah.
-Brilliant.
-That's absolutely fine.
It is [sighs] heart-rending
to see him acting like that
when he's just been charged with murder.
It was just Yeah, unbelievable.
He's the most extraordinary person
I've come across
in years of reporting
and writing about crime.
He had this psychopathic arrogance
about him.
He's not your average person to be
in a custody suite, accused of murder.
So what I'd like to do first of all
is get you to introduce yourself, please.
Okay, I'm Benjamin Luke Field.
Are you happy to be called Ben?
Ben is certainly better.
Benjamin has made a statement.
I, Benjamin Field, did not murder
Ann Moore Martin,
nor did I have any involvement
in her death.
I did not murder Peter Farquhar,
nor did I have any involvement
in his death.
I do not wish to answer
any questions at this stage.
He didn't want to give
any account to anything.
He didn't want to assist the police
in any way, shape or form.
Ben thought he could beat the system.
[tense music playing]
[Smith] The police were aware that some
of Peter's journals were missing.
They suspected that Ben might have
taken them to hide evidence.
So they searched his flat for them.
And no doubt the presence of the film crew
put them under extra pressure
to find them.
Oh, they look like Peter's journals.
I recognize Peter's writing.
And then it says,
"Christmas Eve 2014 to 6th June 2015."
We found the last three journals
Peter had written
that were missing from his collection.
One of the big questions we had was,
did they contain evidence
that he'd been drugged by Ben,
he'd been poisoned?
Anything that could help us prove
that Ben had killed Peter.
-[sombre music playing]
-Reading Peter's last three journals,
we saw a huge decline in his wellbeing.
More and more episodes
of hallucinations and tiredness.
[Peter] One of the most awful days
of my life.
I wanted to die.
I saw hideous packs of black insects.
Seriously questioning my faith
over the past fortnight.
I pray, but no one seems to be listening.
I have even doubted God's existence.
[Ian] I asked him the question,
"Where do you feel God is in all of this?"
And Peter's response to me
at the time was
"If He's there,
He wouldn't let this happen to me."
It wasn't just Peter's journals that the
police found when they went to Ben's home.
They also found his own writings.
[ominous music playing]
There were diaries, sheets of paper
on which he'd written copious notes.
It would take the police weeks
to decipher.
Ben had detailed his abuse of Peter
for quite a long period of time.
Peter has documented his symptoms
from being poisoned.
And the same date, Ben documented
where he gave a certain amount of drugs
to Peter in his toast.
[Ben] Breakfast in bed.
2.5 milligrams Diclaz in toast.
[Peter] Ben made up for yesterday
by giving me breakfast in bed.
I have been feeling tired and lethargic
for a few weeks now.
He has been so kind and imaginative.
[Bordass]
Between the two sets of writings,
we were able to join the dots,
correlate the dates,
and create a parallel timeline
between the two
detailing systematic abuse
and torture Ben was inflicting on Peter.
[officer] And next to Peter's name,
he's put a grave.
-[Glover] Picture of a gravestone.
-"Hole's the goal."
That's the goal, to get him in the hole.
-Dead and buried.
-Get him dead.
[Glover] A picture of a gravestone.
'Cause I haven't seen this for a while,
it's come back as a bit of a
a memory jogger.
So the fact
that he'd written all this down,
what he was going to do to Peter,
and how he was going to end it
Yeah, it's heartbreaking.
On the face of it,
Ben is this very, very clever,
conniving, deceiving character.
And yet, the documentary shows
he has really very stupidly given
the police all the evidence they need.
[officer] And then there's
"timescale, 2014, cordial Peter."
And "2015, end Peter."
[eerie music playing]
[Bordass] When Ben was arrested,
one of the things we seized was his phone.
We discovered photos of the messages
that Ben had written
to Ann Moore Martin on her mirrors.
Is that you in that picture there?
No comment.
Tell me about that message, Ben.
No comment.
-Tell me if you wrote it.
-No comment.
The police are confident
that Ben is responsible
for killing Peter and harming Ann.
But Ben's refusal to answer questions,
his refusals to make any admissions,
makes it quite difficult for the police.
[Bordass] With what we found
in Ben's possession,
we were close.
But a lot of what we knew
was circumstantial.
We did not have enough evidence
to charge him at this point.
So heartbreakingly for us
and the investigation,
we had to bail him again.
[tense music playing]
[Lockyer] The day the hair analysis report
came back was really important,
because the French laboratory
was able to identify
that Peter had been exposed to Diclazepam.
It's a drug originally created
in the 1970s
as an alternate drug for treatment
of depression and anxiety.
So you'll have the sleepiness,
you'll have the discoordination,
you'll have the hallucinations.
All of those symptoms would have been
attributed to this Diclazepam
which was being given to Peter
without his knowledge.
But the hair analysis on its own
didn't explain the reason why Peter died.
When I re-examined the video footage
from the scene
what I could clearly see was when
Peter was found deceased on the sofa,
next to him was an extremely large pillow.
My conclusion was that Peter
had been plied with alcohol
and then Ben would have taken
that opportunity to take the pillow
and he would have used that
to smother Peter in his sleep.
[Bordass] It was at that point
in the investigation
where we had the last pieces of the puzzle
that we needed
to seek a conviction.
And in the end,
there wasn't just one thing.
But what we were able to do
is put everything together.
And forensics played a big part in that.
[tense music playing]
In November 2018,
we rearrested Ben.
Is this a bail check?
-No, it's not a bail check.
-Right.
Ben, you're gonna be under arrest
on suspicion of murder of Peter Farquhar.
Okay?
We charged him with the murder
of Peter Farquhar
and the attempted murder
of Ann Moore Martin.
[foreboding music playing]
Ben Field admits to having been
cruel and malicious,
of misleading both Peter Farquhar
and Ann Moore Martin.
But he denies planning to kill them.
[Ian] He swaggered up to the box
and, you know, just sort of
You think you're gonna get away with this.
I wanted to go
and walk right through the court
and plant one on his face,
'cause he was such an arrogant,
unkind, nasty man.
[siren wailing]
Justice Sweeney described
the death of Peter Farquhar
as a murder for gain.
The 36-year jail sentence
is one of the longest ever
to be handed out in the Thames Valley.
It is four years, less a week,
since my brother Peter was murdered.
His murderer, Ben Field,
is a deeply malevolent
and thoroughly evil man.
[Dan] I was really happy
that he was put away.
But on the other hand,
I couldn't help but feeling really sad
that this could have been avoided.
[sombre music playing]
[Bordass] I feel comfort that we found
a way to convict him for what he did.
It's hard to call something
a success where
you don't get to save people.
So
bittersweet, really.
[Foreshew-Cain] I do feel guilty.
Because I was encouraging Peter
to be open to relationships
and the first person he thought
he could have a relationship with
murdered him.
[Ian] Older people are vulnerable.
They become attractive to nasty people
who are looking for an easy way
to get to their ends.
You should watch out for old people
because you could stop
what happened to my brother.