A former church warden, convicted of murdering a university lecturer, has had his life sentence overturned by the Court of Appeal.
In 2019, Benjamin Field was sentenced to a minimum of 36 years for the murder of 69-year-old Peter Farquhar in Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire. During the trial, prosecutors alleged that Field manipulated Farquhar into believing he was losing his sanity to gain access to his estate. It was claimed that Field secretly administered tranquilizers and contaminated Farquhar’s whisky, intending for his death in 2015 to appear as either a suicide or an accident.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission referred the case to the Court of Appeal last year. At a hearing in March, Field’s legal team argued that there was “no evidence” to suggest that Farquhar was “coerced or misled” into consuming the whisky or medication.
On Thursday, a panel of three senior judges annulled the conviction and mandated a new trial. Lord Justice Edis, alongside Mr. Justice Goose and Mr. Justice Butcher, also permitted the Crown Prosecution Service to present this “unusual case” to the Supreme Court prior to the commencement of any retrial.
