All language subtitles for The Truth About My Murder S01E04 1080p WEB DL H264 BTN_track3_[eng]

When a murder is committed,

it's always a race against time
to find the truth,

to separate fact from fiction,
to catch the killer

and to make sure
that justice is served.

But what happens when the truth
vanishes with the victim?

I'm Dr Richard Shepherd
and I've spent my career

as a forensic pathologist,
performing nearly 23,000 autopsies,

including on some of the most
high-profile cases of recent times.

I've learnt that the dead don't hide
the truth and they never lie.

Through me you'll be hearing
directly from the victim.

From a state-of-the-art laboratory
with groundbreaking technology

that uses
digitally scanned sampled bodies

I'll be investigating
a series of intriguing murders

where, from the victim's bodies,

I'll be revealing to you the truth
behind those horrific crimes.

(camera clicks)

'Maids Moreton,
on the outskirts of Buckingham,

has a population of less than
1,000.'

'It's not the kind of place you'd
expect to find on the front pages'.

But this sleepy, tiny village

would become the centre
of a murder investigation so complex

that it could only be solved
from beyond the grave.

Peter Farquhar,
69-year-old retired school teacher,

had requested to be buried
in the churchyard,

laid to eternal rest,
never to be disturbed.

'But did Peter's body have
any secrets it needed to tell?'

'It was late October 2015

and Peter Farquhar
was in good spirits.'

'After being plagued by a mystery
illness, he phoned a friend

to say he was feeling better
than he had in months.'

'But within days he was dead.'

'So it's Monday morning and
Peter's cleaner enters the lounge.'

On the right-hand side
of the sofa is Peter.

'He's slumped over,
lolling over to the right.'

It's clear that's he's died.

'The cleaner dialled 999.'

'Then she phoned a young man
called Ben Field,

who had been living with Peter.'

Ben Field, he was Peter's lodger,

a student in Peter's classes
at the University of Buckingham.

He had moved into Peter's home
and they'd become quite close.

Ben in fact turned up
within a few minutes.

He was there before
the emergency services arrived.

So when the paramedics came,
Ben was able to tell them

that Peter had been having problems
with drinking,

he was drinking heavily.

The account that Ben gave of him
drinking seemed to fit the scene.

There was a small table beside Peter

and there was a bottle of whisky
on it, two-thirds empty,

a glass knocked over on the floor.

So that seemed to fit the idea that
he maybe drunk himself to death.

There were no suspicions
about Peter's death at all.

No-one raised any concerns about it.

It was what it appeared to be
on the surface,

and no-one had any doubts that
that was the cause of Peter's death.

'But the truth of what happened
to Peter Farquhar

and how he really died could only
be found in one place, his body.'

So when someone dies and if
there are suspicious circumstances

or the cause of death
can't be certified by a doctor,

a postmortem is performed.

In circumstances where there isn't
any worry about it being a murder,

then a routine postmortem
is performed

by a hospital pathologist, usually.

And I can show you on this digital
table, using the sample body.

When we do a postmortem like this,
we start by making an incision

from the base of the neck
through to the pubic bone,

and then we remove the skin and
we look at the muscles underneath.

I make an incision right down
the front of the abdomen

and if someone is a heavy drinker,

there's an immediate
strong smell of alcohol

as the bowel and the intestines
are exposed.

We'll look at the contents
of the abdomen,

the contents of the chest.

There's the liver, the bowel,
the heart, the lungs.

We'll look at those to see if
there's any injuries or any disease.

We then look at the top of the skull
and we take off the top of the skull

and we look at the brain to see
what's going on inside the head,

and the brain itself is examined
too.

So all of the areas of the body
are fully examined

in a routine postmortem.

And often standard toxicological
tests are performed as well,

to see whether there's any alcohol.

Now, in the case of Peter Farquhar,

it was said
that he was an alcoholic.

It was said that he was found
collapsed on the settee

with a half-empty bottle of whisky
next to him,

and so the coroner ordered a test
for alcohol to be performed.

Not the full screening test
that can be done,

but just looking at alcohol.

And this showed his alcohol was
three times the limit for driving.

That was sufficient for them
to conclude

that he had died
from acute alcohol poisoning.

So at the end of the examination,
they hadn't found any disease,

they'd found the presence of
alcohol.

So they managed
to establish a cause of death,

but possibly not the cause of death.

'After that initial postmortem,

Peter's body was released
back to his family.'

'Peter was deeply religious

and had asked to be buried
at Stowe Parish Church,

where he was a popular member
of the congregation.'

Peter's funeral was a huge affair
at Stowe Church.

There were so many people that they
couldn't all get into the building.

'Peter's young lodger, Ben Field,

who had been closest to him
in his final moments,

took a leading role in the service.'

Ben read a eulogy to him,
which was kind of in keeping

with his apparent relationship
with Peter.

It was full of puns and wordplay

and obviously
made Ben seem very clever.

People generally
had goodwill towards him,

they thought that he really looked
after Peter in his declining times,

because he'd been ill for a while.

And he just seemed to be a...
you know, a young decent man.

There was a lot of discussion
of what caused Peter's death.

I asked Ben if he could tell me

and he said
that it was confidential,

that the family
didn't want people to know,

but he had died
from alcohol poisoning.

And he told me a story

of how all the alcohol in the house
had been taken out,

but he had accidentally left
a bottle of very good malt whisky,

which he'd intended to give
as a present to someone else.

And Peter must have found it
when sleepwalking

and had drank most of it,
and that had caused his death.

Ben was very lucky. Peter had made
him the beneficiary of his estate.

And in fact Peter's house
ended up being sold,

and Ben received
half of the proceeds,

which enabled him to buy a home
in Towcester, a small flat.

He did very well
out of Peter's death.

'And that might have been
the end of it,

until it was discovered
that months earlier,

while Peter was still alive,

one of his elderly neighbours
had also become very close

to none other than Ben Field.'

Ann Moore-Martin, Peter's neighbour,
she lived three doors up,

she was a retired
primary school head teacher.

By this time
she's in her early 80s.

She's never married, she has no
children and she's comfortably off.

She meets Ben and Ben starts wooing
her, becoming friendly with her,

and Ann in return
was completely love struck by Ben.

He gave her a photograph of himself

and he captioned it, beneath the
photograph, "I am always with you."

She created a kind of shrine
in her home.

By degrees, Ann became separated
from her family.

Ben, I think, encouraged her

to reduce her contact
with her family

and so she became isolated
from them.

'A year after Peter had died,

Ben was now poised
to inherit Ann's house as well.'

Ann was very religious.
She believed very profoundly in God.

And she'd starting receiving
these apparent miracle messages

on her mirrors in her home.

They said things like,
"God loves you," "Take care of Ben,"

"God will reward you."

And really the messages
seemed to be saying to Ann,

"Make Ben a beneficiary
of your will."

Ann decided to change her will
in his favour.

She made contact
with a local solicitor.

Unfortunately for Ben,

it was the same solicitor
that Peter had also gone to

when he was changing his will
in Ben's favour,

and obviously
the solicitor was suspicious.

'The solicitor raised concerns
with Ann,

but in December of that year
she went ahead

and changed her will to benefit
Ben.'

'Less than two months later,
Ann ended up in hospital

and the true nature
of her relationship with Ben

finally came to light.'

Eventually Ann had a stroke,
a minor stroke,

and was admitted to hospital.

And her niece,

who was already concerned
about Ben's role in her life,

contacted the police.

The police started talking to Ann

and she began telling them
what had been going on.

She'd also spoken to a friend
about Ben having white powder

and that made the police suspicious
as well.

'With the alarm now raised,

Ben Field was arrested for fraud
in March 2017.'

'And once he was
under police investigation,

detectives started to realise

that Ben Field's relationship
with Peter Farquhar

may also not have been
what it seemed.'

Peter and Ann
didn't know each other well.

They were neighbours
but weren't close.

They were both single,
they'd never married,

they didn't have any children,
didn't have a very close family,

and they were both very vulnerable.

So Ann died eventually of natural
causes. She died of a huge stroke.

There was nothing suspicious
about her death.

But that didn't stop
some of her family

and some of the people who knew her

believing that Ben must have been
involved somehow in her death.

The police started looking
at Ben's behaviour and his conduct.

And they became suspicious of him

and began to wonder if Peter and Ann
might have been murdered.

It was no longer now a fraud case.
It was a murder inquiry.

'When 69-year-old Peter Farquhar
died in 2015,

it was not treated as suspicious.'

'His body did, however, hold secrets
which had not yet been discovered.'

But after his death,
police had no reason to suspect

that his lodger, Ben Field,
was lying about his alcohol problem,

or that there was anything untoward

about Ben inheriting money
from Peter's will.

'As Peter struggled
with his declining health,

Ben had been there at his side,

so no-one had really asked
how a young man,

more than 40 years his junior,

had come to be living with Peter
in the first place.'

When he first met Ben,
Peter was in his mid to late 60s.

He was a retired English teacher
at two prominent public schools.

He'd been a senior teacher
at Manchester Grammar School,

and then he'd moved down south

to take up the Head of English
at Stowe Public School.

He was focused on his work
as a school master,

a very effective teacher.

He was focused on his faith,
as a Christian.

And he also entertained dreams
of becoming a published novelist.

He had written novels
and none of them had been published.

But he was quite content.
He had a comfortable life.

He also had a great sense of humour
and was very good company.

He was very interested
in all aspects

of culture, music, and art,
and architecture,

and liked travel.

'As an inspiring novelist,
Peter was a prolific writer.'

For very many years,
back to the '90s,

Peter had been writing
daily journals.

I think it was
something like 62 books,

each one of about 200 pages,
closely handwritten.

He would record everything
that happened.

They were quite microscopic accounts
of Peter's daily life.

'His journals revealed
that Peter was a man in turmoil.'

Peter came from
a very religious family

and he himself was
extremely religious

and what you might call High Church.

He was a member, an active member
of the church at Stowe.

He was also gay, he was homosexual,

but he found that absolutely
incompatible with his faith

and he couldn't reconcile
those two parts of himself.

It was really very sad.

I'm sure that Peter was lonely
in his retirement.

He did share with me
his own feelings of guilt

at having fantasies and desires

that he felt
should not become reality.

It was a sort of secret sexuality.

He believed that it was not wrong
to have homosexual feelings,

but that it was, for him,
as a Christian,

wrong to live them out.

I think undoubtedly

the fact that Peter was kind of
tormented by his sexuality

made him vulnerable
to anyone with a predatory intent.

'In retirement
Peter took up the position

as a part-time English lecturer,

and this is where he first met
Ben Field.'

So in April 2011,
Peter notices Ben Field,

who is then just 20,

a young man sitting in the class
that he's teaching.

He seemed to like him and seems
to be impressed by his intelligence.

The first time I'd heard about Ben

was when Peter
was describing a class

that he was teaching
at Buckingham University.

And it was not very responsive,
the class,

but there was one bright student
and that was Ben Field.

By the sound of it he was
very clever, very vocal in class.

He liked to contribute.

Ben came from a normal,
quite respectable family,

quite a comfortable upbringing.

His mother was a parish councillor,

his father was a Baptist minister
at a popular local church.

It seemed that after a while
Ben was visiting him at home

and he said, "Ben comes and chats
and is very pleasant company,

seems to like to come
and talk to me."

'Ben appeared to share
Peter's love of literature

and their relationship
developed quickly.'

They spent a lot of time talking
about books and writing.

That was the great passion
for both of them.

I think they had
quite competitive conservations,

trying to outwit each other
with their clever wordplay.

Peter was attracted to Ben

because they exchanged ideas
about literature.

Ben was full of his own approaches
to literature

and ready to discuss and argue

and Peter was very happy
to engage in that,

and he found him pleasant company.

'Before long, this attraction
became a serious commitment.'

Things progressed
between Ben and Peter.

'Two-and-a-half years
after they first met,

they took
a walking holiday together.'

It's the first time they share a bed
in a hotel room,

which Peter's journals reveal
he found... finds very exciting,

being close to Ben's body.

Then, on this particular day,
they take a walk up a hill

and at the top Ben declares his love
for Peter.

He produces two knives that he's
bought especially for the occasion.

They are, you know,
the equivalent of wedding rings.

They're symbols of brotherhood
and commitment.

This is the culmination
of everything

that Peter might have secretly
hoped for his whole life.

Ben now moves into Peter's home.

They've agreed to the outside world
Ben will be the lodger,

but it's a very poignant detail

that, for the first time
in his life,

Peter goes out and buys
a double bed,

clearly, you know, planning
to share that bed with Ben.

No-one really knows whether or not
Ben and Peter ever had sex.

I think that Peter used a phrase
in his journal,

words to the effect of,

"Total physical and emotional
satisfaction before God."

That might be an interpretation
of the fact they were having sex,

but it's just impossible to know.

Peter sent me an email
telling me that Ben was moving in

and that they were forming
a partnership

and that this was not
to be official,

no-one was to know about it.

Neither of them felt it necessary
to tell anybody else.

Peter was thanking God
for this God-given relationship.

He was sure that it was blessed.

'Five months later,
they made a serious commitment.'

So things moved quite quickly
for Ben and Peter now

and in March 2014 they go through
a ceremony of betrothal.

There's a gay vicar in London,
at Abbey Road,

in Kilburn, St Mary's Church,

and he conducts a small ceremony
for them.

It's just the three of them.

As far as I know, I'm the only
person that Peter spoke to

about this blessing
that their relationship received.

'Although their personal
relationship stayed private,

their relationship with God
was shared very publicly.'

'Ben quickly established himself

as a trusted member
of Peter's congregation.'

Ben starts accompanying Peter
to his church, Stowe Church,

and Ben is charming and willing.

He becomes a deputy church warden.

He's essentially inveigling himself
into the life of the church.

The congregation,
like everyone else who met Ben,

found him very charming,
plausible, very clever.

Quite incredibly, he decided
that he would seek to be ordained.

He was quite close to actually
being ordained as a vicar.

Ben Field did arguably
groom those around Peter

in the local community.

It seemed that he was trying
to create the conditions

to smooth the way into Peter's life

and to gain acceptance so people
wouldn't ask too many questions.

And he seemed to be presenting
a persona

of somebody who was very religious

and educated and caring.

Very much
at variance with the truth.

'Ben was soon a core member
of Peter's social circle.'

Peter had an active social life.

He liked having people round,
went to other people's houses.

The incredible thing about Ben
is that people really liked him

and people perceived
that he was really good for Peter

and was looking after him.

They understood that Peter was quite
lonely and Ben was filling a void.

'But there were people
who had their doubts.'

I do remember the occasion
when we met here

and I went into the kitchen
and Ben followed me in and chatted

and admired various objects
in the house.

And then he said,
"This is the sort of thing I like,"

and he took out a flick knife.

And suddenly the blade
was flashed at me.

I was a bit taken aback,
a bit surprised at this,

but I don't think
I showed any reaction.

But it was, in retrospect,
a rather sinister moment.

'It was a moment that revealed

the inner workings
of Ben Field's psyche.'

Narcissism is a term that's used
to describe a pattern of behaviour

that centres upon an individual's
belief in their own superiority.

Being superior to other people,
in their own minds,

they're entitled to manipulate
and exploit other people.

They do typically demand attention
as well.

They seek opportunities
to demonstrate

their supposed superiority.

So it's not just a sort
of casual charm,

which sometimes they present
towards the world, all the time.

Sometimes they can be vicious
and vindictive as well.

'Despite the tell-tale signs,

throughout their relationship
and even after Peter's death,

no-one raised any concerns
about Ben Field.'

'It was only a year-and-a-half
later,

when Ann Moore-Martin
had also changed her will

to benefit Ben Field,
that Ben was arrested for fraud.'

'The police started asking
serious questions.'

They had started looking
at all the huge amount of material

that they recovered
from their searches of Ben's homes

and they decided
there was enough there to suggest

that if they examined Peter's body
in more detail,

they may find fresh evidence.

So the police eventually decided

that they needed to exhume Peter's
body from the cemetery at Stowe.

It's not an everyday occurrence

for the police to exhume the bodies
of people who have died.

It's very rare.

I don't think the police
wanted to alert the community

and also the potential suspect
to the fact

that they were essentially carrying
out a covert murder enquiry.

So they carried out the exhumation
privately and quietly.

'Peter Farquhar
had been dead and buried

in Stowe parish churchyard
for a year and a half.'

'But his body still had secrets
that had not yet been discovered.'

It's amazing how much information
you can get

from a body that's been buried
for a long time.

The changes of decomposition
depends so much

on the type of soil
that the body was buried in.

And in Peter's case,

in fact the preservation of his body
was very good.

The skin in some small areas
had been decomposed

and bits of the skeleton
were exposed,

and the external surfaces,
because of those changes,

would have lost
some superficial evidence

that might have been present.

Now, Peter's organs
had changed a bit,

returning, as is the normal process,
through their cellular contents,

back to the earth,
as we would expect.

The internal organs that were able
to be seen present within the body

were pretty good
and could be further examined.

But the key thing was,

in order to establish
whether Peter had actually died

as a result
of acute alcoholic intoxication,

there needed to be
a much more detailed examination

of the whole of the body,

looking in greater detail
for any injuries, any other
findings,

and of course for much more
toxicological examination.

'The secret of Peter had really died
and been buried with him.'

'Now his own body would tell
the true story

of what the killer really did
to his victim.'

Critically, the most important
piece of evidence

that sealed the case
were the results of the exhumation

that had been carried out
of Peter's body.

I don't think I've ever
come across anything like it.

When Peter Farquhar
was found dead in 2015,

next to a half-empty bottle
of whisky,

no-one had doubted that he'd died
from excessive drinking.

But now his body had been exhumed...

..and finally would be able to tell
the truth about what had happened.

'Peter's body was examined
in far more detail

during the second postmortem.'

'And his lodger, Ben Field,
now also found himself

under much closer scrutiny.'

I think he put on a good show,
a good act.

He was what my mother would've
called a plausible young man.

He knew how to talk to people
and please them.

'Back in 2013,
after moving in with Peter,

Ben Field got a job
at a local care home.'

He underwent training
for how to look after the residents

and it seemed like a really kind,

religious, you know,
type of thing to be doing,

to be looking after others.

I knew that he was putting himself
forward for ordination

and I said, "Well, this is all
good pastoral experience,

er, helping people."

And his reply surprised me.

"Yes, and it will help me
look after Peter

in his dementia."

Which I found a shocking statement.

I was really very surprised.

'This was the first anyone had heard

that Peter might be suffering
from dementia.'

So I think towards the end of 2014,
the beginning of 2015,

that some of Peter's friends
began to notice

some decline in his faculties.

He seemed a little slow sometimes,
a little sleepy.

He seemed quite forgetful.
Previously he was very sharp-witted.

He would sometimes say
he was hearing voices.

Peter suffered
quite severe hallucinations

and, you know, almost like
sort of out-of-body experiences,

which he wrote about in his journal.

Seeing, you know, shards of light,
and, you know, small creatures,

and really very disturbing things.

People were concerned.

It was at about the same time
that Peter was telling me regularly

that Ben told him
that he was sleepwalking,

and he was doing things that
he couldn't remember having done.

Things like
all the family photographs

that were in the living room

had moved
up into his study upstairs.

He couldn't find his car keys.

He said, "Ben always finds
these things."

"I've hidden them around the house."

"I don't know what I'm doing.
I fear I'm losing my mind."

He was very distressed about this,
as anyone would be.

One of the nastiest occasions
was when Ben showed him, he told me,

a box of files which had become
sodden with urine,

and Ben said,
"You must have peed in it

when you were walking,
sleepwalking."

So that was pretty shocking.

'And sometimes, while Peter was
going through these frightening
episodes,

Ben was filming him.'

They're, they're, they're, erm...

...exchanging...

...very substantial amounts of money

for, you know, a glass of whatever.

(Ben) Where is it
that you think they are?

I'm not sure, myself.

So where is it that they're buying
these glasses of water?

They probably aren't.

Ben Field's behaviour
towards Peter Farquhar

does seem to have been
extremely cold-blooded,

very calculated.

I think he did undoubtedly
get gratification

from the hold that he had
over Peter.

The fact that he was able to
manipulate Peter into doing things,

it's as if this was
just as important to him

as the financial gain, for example.

He asked people to pray for him.

I suppose he feared
that he might have dementia

or that, you know,
he might be suffering

some other kind of long-term illness
that was creeping up on him.

So in the summer of 2015
Peter had this book launch

for a book called
The White, White Sea.

That was one of his novels.

And he started feeling very ill
and behaving very strangely,

and he would later
write in his journal

what a terrible day it had been

and how he'd been having all these
very odd sort of unreal experiences

during the whole event.

I was told
that he felt very unwell indeed

and that he could hardly sign copies
of his book.

I was not invited to it,

which I think might have been
a calculation on Ben's part.

'Peter suffered a number
of accidents, injuries

and public humiliations.'

'All of it, said Ben,
evidence of dementia.'

(operator) "The reason for the
call?" (Ben) "Mr Farquhar has
fallen."

"His head struck a table
on his way to the floor."

"OK, what I can do is offer
an assessment for the head injury."

"And how did he manage to fall?"

"Was there a faint or a blackout
before the fall? What happened?"

"He's prone to falls."

"He falls frequently because of
something that's as yet undiagnosed,

but is probably a dementia."

But Peter didn't actually
have dementia.

He'd been to see doctors,
he'd even had an MRI scan,

and there was no neurological
explanation

for the symptoms
that he was displaying.

And they'd also come on
far too suddenly.

Looking at the body
on the digital table,

we can see what a normal brain
looks like.

The surface of the brain is folded
like mountains and valleys.

But in dementia, what happens,
when the brain tissue is lost,

those valleys get bigger and
broader.

When we cut across the brain,

the ventricles, the holes
in the middle of the brain,

that normally contain
clear cerebrospinal fluid,

those too get bigger
and full of fluid.

And Peter,
when his brain was examined,

showed none of these
pathological signs of dementia.

So if Ben had been making up
symptoms to try and lay the
groundwork

to suggest
that Peter was developing dementia,

if he was lying about that,
what else could he be lying about?

The other issue
that Ben started putting about

was that Peter was drinking
too much.

People knew
that Peter liked a drink,

but no-one really thought
that he was drinking to excess.

But now Ben was telling them
that, you know,

his excessive drinking was
causing problems with his health.

Peter was a steady drinker.

He'd have a bit of gin and tonic
in the summer,

or a whisky in the winter.

We'd share a bottle of wine
over dinner.

It wasn't excessive.

He was... I never saw him drunk.

Peter's drinking habits
were not indicative

of someone with an alcohol problem.

He didn't seem like somebody

who drank everything
he could lay his hands on,

but he was quite a keen
social drinker

and so it wasn't a very big step
for people to believe

that he actually might be having
problems with his drinking.

'And it was a problem

that Ben suggested
was spiralling out of control.'

So one night
Ben phoned the emergency services

and told them that Peter
had just taken an overdose.

Ben said that he'd come home

and found Peter with a bottle of gin
and some pills.

But then when he went to hospital
there was no evidence, from tests,

that he drunk very much at all
and no suggestion of an overdose.

'Ben had convinced everyone
that Peter was an alcoholic.'

'But heavy drinking can leave
its mark on the body.'

'Peter's exhumed remains
were in remarkably good condition

and his organs told their own
story.'

Peter was found in his front room,
slumped over on the sofa,

and next to him
was a half-full bottle

of really quite expensive
and very strong whisky.

The first postmortem examination

had done a very narrow
toxicological examination,

not really considering
the wider forensic implications.

It had showed he'd got a significant
amount of alcohol in his
bloodstream.

The second postmortem examination

looked in somewhat more detail
at his liver.

But it still didn't show any
evidence of alcohol-related disease.

It's smooth, it's even, it's brown,

and that's what a normal liver
looks like.

There was no evidence
for the scarring and knobbly pallor

that you associate with cirrhosis
and liver damage.

So was someone trying
to construct a story here?

Telling tales about his life
and his use of alcohol

that might suggest
something else was going on?

And this was the crucial thing.

When there was a wider
forensic examination of Peter,

could it be established
that he necessarily would have died

from the amount of alcohol
that was present in his blood?

Or was there something more sinister
going on?

'Back in 2015, in Maids Moreton,

Peter was so concerned
about his failing health

that he moves into a care home,
where he saw a dramatic change.'

He's away from Ben, obviously,

and miraculously
he starts to feel so much better.

He feels much better in himself.

He starts phoning friends,
telling them how well he's feeling.

'One of the friends he called
was Robert Wilson.'

He told me then that
he'd been in a care home for a week,

during which he said
he did not sleepwalk at all.

That stayed with me.

I realised that I never
really put two and two together

to see that he never
actually sleepwalked at all.

'Peter seemed relieved that his
mysterious symptoms had disappeared,

but his moment of happiness
was all too brief.'

He goes home,
he goes to his church,

and he tells the congregation
that he's feeling much better.

Everyone is really pleased.

And it's the next day
that he's found dead by his cleaner.

When Peter Farquhar died in 2015,
foul play wasn't suspected

and it wasn't investigated
any further.

'But then a shock discovery
led to the exhumation of his body

and the chance
for it to reveal the truth.'

'It was discovered
that Peter's lodger, Ben Field,

has also convinced
82-year-old Ann Moore-Martin

to change her will in his favour,

setting off a chain of events
that would prove to be his
downfall.'

As it would turn out, of course,
Ben shot himself in the foot

when he was trying to gaslight Ann
and get into her will,

because he pushed her
to make contact with a solicitor.

And she contacted the very solicitor

who already knew what he had done
with Peter, getting into his will.

'Ben Field was arrested for fraud,

and as part of the investigation
detectives searched Ben's home.'

'That's when they found his
diaries.'

All these notebooks of Ben's,
in which he'd written effectively

what he planned to do,
what he'd done.

One of the mysteries of the case is
Ben knew the police were after him,

but he didn't destroy
those notebooks,

which would have made it much harder
to build a case.

He left everything there.

'But police still didn't
have enough evidence

to charge Ben Field with murder.'

'They needed to prove
he intended to kill Peter.'

It took the police so long
to get to grips with this case.

It was so difficult to read
all this spidery writing,

but eventually they started
realising what he'd done.

And not only that,

but realising that he'd written down
what he'd done.

So in January 2018 he was arrested,

and this time
he was arrested for murder.

There was an overwhelming amount
of evidence from Ben's own hand

that he always intended
that Peter would die.

He'd written a little... he'd drawn
this little illustration of a grave

and beside it he'd written
"The hole is the goal,"

and he was referring to Peter.

He'd written about attacking him,

he'd written down how he wanted
to hit him with a hammer.

2015, he'd written "End Peter."

And of course that's what happened.

'The notebooks revealed
the mind of a killer.'

I think the extensive
and detailed note keeping,

it might be seen as him adopting
a professional approach

to what he was doing.

It's as if he prided himself
on his meticulousness

and attention to detail.

I think there were over 50 instances

in which Ben had written
that he had given Peter sedatives,

benzodiazepines in various forms.

The police also discovered

that Ben had been stealing drugs
from the care home where he worked,

which enabled him to do that.

And they also saw

that when Peter was suffering
these out-of-body experiences,

he'd been given psychedelic drugs,
a drug called BK-2C-B.

That was why he'd been having
these terrible reactions.

'But although he had written
about drugging and killing Peter,

it wasn't proof
that he'd actually carried it out.'

'Only the truths revealed by Peter's
body during the second postmortem

could provide the proof.'

'It had been established

that there was no evidence
of alcoholism or dementia,

as Ben had claimed.'

'But was the body holding
more secrets?'

In Peter's exhumation,
they recovered samples of his hair

for toxicological examination.

Now, the hair doesn't decompose
very quickly after death,

and that's because
it's composed of keratin,

the material
that makes your nails,

and I can show you pictures of it
on the digital table here.

We know hair grows in life at about
one centimetre per month in an
adult.

In Peter's case there was
about six centimetres of hair,

meaning the toxicologist
could look at the drugs he had
taken,

or was administered,
over the six months of his life.

And when they did so, they could see
that there were benzodiazepine drugs

present throughout the samples
that were analysed.

It also found evidence
that he had taken, or been given,

an ecstasy type drug,

the type of drug that gives people
bizarre hallucinations.

And that would explain perhaps

his really odd behaviour
at his book launch.

'The hair proved
that what Ben Field had written

in the pages of his journals
about harming Peter

was not just fantasies.'

'It was evidence
that he had actually done it.'

This is such an unusual case,

because it's all there,
it's all written down.

So you had Ben describing in his
notebooks that he's drugged Peter.

You had Peter
in the next day's journal entry

describing how he felt,
he felt so ill.

And then you have
the forensic science,

you have the evidence of the hair
samples from the exhumation

revealing that the whole time
that Peter was being drugged.

Gaslighting is a behaviour
that would be consistent

with some of what narcissists do,

because it really is concerned
with undermining another person,

destroying their confidence,

and maybe getting the person
to question their own beliefs,

they don't know what's real anymore,
to make him feel depressed

over the fact that he seemed
to be losing his faculties.

So although the police could never
absolutely say with certainty

what happened
at the moment of Peter's death,

how he had died at Ben's hand,

the evidence
that Ben had killed Peter

and that he'd intended to kill him
was overwhelming.

'Ben Field was charged
with the murder of Peter Farquhar

and the attempted murder
of Ann Moore-Martin.'

Ben's trial at Oxford Crown Court
in the summer of 2019

was absolutely epic.

It lasted over three-and-a-half
months, the whole summer.

Ben, you know, disclosed so many
extraordinary things that he'd done.

He was giving evidence
for well over two weeks

and he was in the witness box
facing the jury

like he was delivering a lecture,

trying to play down
what he'd really done.

But at the same time not being able
to avoid showing people

how clever he was, how devious.

Seeking to represent yourself
in court is rather unusual

and that is entirely consistent
with his narcissistic tendencies.

Maybe he felt that he would
be better than any mere lawyer,

that he'd be able to dazzle the jury
with his brilliance,

and meanwhile receive a lot
of attention in the courtroom.

So it would tick a lot of boxes
for him, I'm sure.

Ben was deceiving everyone. He was
living a completely unreal life.

It was extraordinary
to hear it unfold in court.

His defence was that
when he wrote those things down

he was just playing with ideas,
he never really meant any of it.

And what else could he say?
He'd written it all down.

He'd left it there
for the police to find.

'Ben's notebooks
also revealed a hit list

of over 100 people to manipulate,
including his own parents.'

'There was little doubt
that he would kill again.'

I was called to be a witness
at the trial of Ben Field.

It was a very strange
and rather frightening experience,

giving evidence.

During the court case,

the defence wanted me to know
that I was on Ben's hit list.

He had a list of people who he might
consider murdering in due course.

I think the fact that
the police found a list of,

I think it was over 100
potential targets,

does give an indication

of just how planned
and cold-blooded it really was.

He was fascinated
by how clever he was.

And it felt like that
when he was in the dock

talking to the jury
about all his misdeeds,

that he was kind of proud of them
in some way.

And, you know,
you could see him almost rising,

he had this kind of grandiosity
about him and the superiority.

A psychopath is usually described

as having
a kind of superficial charm,

a sense of grandiosity,
a sense of their own importance.

Is often quite glib

and rather dismissive
of other people's points of view,

seem very confident
regarding their own point of view.

There's a great willingness to use
deceit to achieve their own ends.

'After the trial lasting 15 weeks,

Ben Field was found guilty
of Peter Farquhar's murder,

but there wasn't enough evidence
to convict him

of having played a part
in the death of Ann Moore-Martin.'

Ben was given a life sentence.

He was convicted of murder,
sentenced to life

and he received a 36-year tariff,

which means
that he will serve 36 years

before he can be considered
for release.

He may never be released,

but he won't be going anywhere
for 36 years.

Peter Farquhar didn't survive
the calculated cruelty of Ben Field.

A body never lies.

And Peter's body needed to be able
to give the truth

of what had happened to him.

But thanks to his wish
to be buried in holy ground,

in the churchyard
that was so central to his life,

the evidence buried with him

helped ensure that Ben Field
could never claim another victim.

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