A former church warden who was jailed for life for the murder of a university lecturer has had his conviction quashed at the Court of Appeal.
Benjamin Field was jailed for at least 36 years in 2019 after being found guilty of murdering 69-year-old Peter Farquhar in Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire.
Prosecutors told Field’s trial that he had driven Mr Farquhar to think he was losing his mind in order to inherit his house and money, secretly giving the pensioner tranquiliser drugs and spiking his whisky in the hope that his death in 2015 would look like suicide or an accident.
The case was referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission last year, with Field’s lawyers telling a hearing in March that there was “no evidence” that Mr Farquhar was “forced or deceived” into taking the whisky or medication.
In a ruling on Thursday, three senior judges quashed the conviction and ordered a retrial.
Reading a summary of their ruling, Lord Justice Edis, sitting with Mr Justice Goose and Mr Justice Butcher, said the jurors at trial had “not been properly directed” and the directions given to them on how to reach a verdict were “defective”.
He said: “The directions effectively withdrew from the jury the question of whether Mr Farquhar’s decision to drink the whisky had been voluntary.”
Lord Justice Edis also said the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) could take the “unusual case” to the Supreme Court before any retrial.
The judge added that Field will remain in prison “for so long as the appeal (to the Supreme Court) is pending”.
