Writer’s words of torment ‘after pair fed him drugs him to gain fortune’
FRIEND DIANE LAMBERT TELLS HOW VICTIM LOOKED A CHURCH warden and a magician laced a lecturer’s toast with drugs in a murderous plot to convince him he was going mad and steal his fortune, a court heard.
Peter Farquhar, 69, said he feared he was losing his mind “like King Lear” after being befriended by students
Ben Field and Martyn Smith.
They spiked his food with psychedelic drugs and “supercharged” his drinks by pouring neat alcohol into his whisky, it is claimed.
Prosecutors claim Field suffocated Mr Farquhar in idyllic Maids Moreton, Bucks, in October 2015.
Friends compared Mr Farquhar to a stroke victim and said he looked like an “85 to 90-year-old man”.
He wrote in his journal of becoming tired after eating meals cooked by Field, 28, Oxford crown court heard.
He also described hallucinations after allegedly being given the drugs by the pair without his knowledge.
In one entry, the novelist and former head of English at Stowe School wrote: “One of the most awful days of my life. I wanted to die. I saw hideous black insects. I talked gibberish. Ben and Martyn supported me all night.”
Oliver Saxby QC, prosecuting, said: “He believed he was losing his mind. Field and Smith were drugging him and encouraging him to drink more alcohol.”
Friend Diane Lambert described Mr Farquhar as “unshaven, with dribble by the side of his mouth”, the court heard.
She told police: “He was acting as if drugged or had had a stroke.”
The pair also allegedly plotted to kill Mr Farquhar’s neighbour, Ann MooreMartin, 83, in a similar way.
Field began sexual relationships with both victims, it is claimed, while entertaining girlfriends including lecturer Setara Pracha, a colleague of Mr Farquhar at Buckingham University.
A coroner said Mr Farquhar died from “acute alcohol intoxication”. But jurors were told that sedatives were found in his exhumed body.
Baptist minister’s son Field, of Olney, Bucks, and Smith, 32, of Redruth, Cornwall, deny murdering Mr Farquhar, pocketing £30,000 in his will and plotting to murder Mrs Moore-Martin.
Smith denies two counts of fraud, burglary and possession of an article for use in fraud.
Field also denies trying to murder Mrs Moore-Martin. His brother, ex-Cambridge student Tom, 24, denies one fraud. The trial continues. ACCUSED Ben Field ACCUSED Martyn Smith Mr Farquhar published The Bitter Heart in 2012
Unshaven and dribbling, he acted as if drugged or suffering from a stroke