A man found guilty of the murder of a former University of Manchester lecturer has had his case referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) under the ‘exceptional circumstances’ rule.
Benjamin Field was convicted in August 2019 at Oxford Crown Court of the murder of Peter Farquhar. Mr Farquhar was found dead in his home in Maids Moreton in October 2015. Mr Field had pretended to be in a relationship with Mr Farquhar to inherit his estate.
Mr Farquhar’s cause of death was determined as being a result of acute alcohol toxicity, but after a second post-mortem Flurazepam, which is commonly used to treat insomnia, was also found. Mr Field was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 36 years.
The prosecution case was that Mr Field had manipulated Mr Farquhar into changing his will and then killed him by giving him whisky and encouraging him to drink it. This was while deceiving him as to his true intention, so making it look as if he had drunk himself to death.
The defence case was denial of an intention to kill. During the trial, the defence argued that as a matter of law an individual’s deceptive conduct could amount to murder only if the deception was as to the nature of the act, and not as to their intention in committing it. The trial judge ruled against this argument.
Mr Field appealed his conviction, arguing that the legal ruling was incorrect and so the directions given to the jury in relation to causation were insufficient and wrong in law. The conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeal in March 2021. An application to re-open the appeal was also refused in March 2022.
