The BBC has launched the new drama series, “The Sixth Commandment”, about a killer who defrauded the vulnerable by manipulating them into fake relationships to change their wills.
The four-part drama written by Sarah Phelps features Timothy Spall as Peter Farquhar and Anne Reid as Ann Moore-Martin.
Benjamin Field was jailed for the murder of Peter Farquhar in 2015 and admitted to defrauding Mr Farquhar’s neighbour, Ann Moore-Martin who were both religious and without children.
Mr Farquhar retired as a head teacher in 2004 and then went on to become a guest lecturer at the University of Buckingham, where he met student Field.
Although he had a wide circle of friends, he was a lonely man and struggled with his sexuality with being a homosexual and religious man. He eventually got to know Field and thought that he had found someone to grow old with and they had “undergone a betrothal ceremony in 2014”.
Anne Moore-Martin was a Catholic and a regular churchgoer who also had friends and was close to her niece. Mr Farquhar and Miss Moore-Martin become “besotted” with Field as he seduced them and got them to change their wills.
At Field’s trial in 2019, it was revealed that he carried out numerous plans to make Mr Farquhar question his sanity by moving things around the house and drugging his drinks and food in which he eventually saw a number of doctors – Field told people he probably had dementia.
He eventually changed his will – naming Field as the main beneficiary and giving him a life interest in his house. In 2015, he was discovered in his living room by his cleaner with a half empty bottle of whisky beside him. His friends and the coroner thought he died form alcohol intoxication.
After his death, Field took advantage of Miss Moore-Martin’s loneliness and developed a sexual relationship. She gave him “£4,400 when he lied to her about needing a new car and handed over £27,000 for a dialysis machine when he told her his younger brother was seriously ill with a kidney condition”.
She eventually took ill and passed away from natural causes. The police became involved when Miss Moore-Martin told her niece about her relationship with him and she reversed her will before she died.
The second post-mortem examination for Mr Farquhar revealed he had sedatives in his system and Field was arrested and admitted duping both Mr Farquhar and Miss Moore-Martin into fake relationships as part of his plan to get them to change their wills.
Field was convicted of Mr Farquhar’s murder on August 2019 after a 10-week trial and was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 36 years.
Watch the drama series here.