Village’s double murder mystery
Former students who lodged with top Scots academic and headmistress neighbour are held over their deaths
TWO neighbours were murdered and plundered of their life savings after taking in university students, it was alleged yesterday.
Cambridge-educated Peter Farquhar, 69, a Scottish former public school teacher, was thought to have died in his sleep in October 2015.
But detectives became suspicious when his 83-year-old friend, ex-Catholic primary school headmistress Ann Moore-Martin, also died suddenly 18 months later.
Neighbours said both had fallen ill and withdrawn from their thriving community in the Buckinghamshire village of Maids Moreton. One said Mrs Moore-Martin was taken to hospital after she inexplicably started bleeding from her mouth only weeks before her death.
Investigators discovered substantial sums of money appeared to have vanished from the accounts of both pensioners. Yesterday, two men were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder, fraud and burglary. A third was held on suspicion of fraud.
The murder suspects are both former students of Edinburgh-born Mr Farquhar at the University of Buckingham, where he lectured in English literature.
The pair lodged with the frail academic and novelist for many months and at least one of them also moved in with Mrs Moore-Martin after his death.
Public records show they established a company three months before Mr Farquhar died devoted to selling his unpublished novels, as well as poetry and essays. One of the men, Baptist minister’s son Ben Field, 27, was arrested at his family home less than 20 miles away in Olney. He was a deputy warden and leading member of the parish church where Mr Farquhar was a long-standing worshipper and preacher. He gave his landlord a dog, Kipling, and read at his funeral. A second suspect, Martyn Smith, 31, was arrested at his parents’ home in Redruth, Cornwall.
The professional magician briefly studied English literature at the University of Buckingham before dropping out.
Mr Farquhar’s third novel, A Wide Wide Sea, is dedicated to the pair. The author says the book ‘would not exist’ without them. A third man, aged 22, whose identity is not known, was arrested in Milton Keynes. News of the murder inquiry sent shockwaves through the village where Mr Farquhar and Mrs Moore-Martin had lived for more than two decades.
Neighbours said they lived yards from each other and were ‘good friends’. Mr Farquhar spent 34 years teaching at the private Manchester Grammar School before moving to £35,000-a-year Stowe School in Buckinghamshire.
After his ‘retirement’ he took up a part-time role as English lecturer in romantic and modern poetry at the University of Buckingham, where colleagues described him as ‘charming, erudite and deeply thoughtful’. An evangelical Christian, he was described by students as ‘an inspiration’ and a character based on his life was played by Toby Stephens in the 2013 football movie Believe.
He was yesterday praised by former pupil Michael Crick – now a Channel 4 News political correspondent – as ‘one of the most extraordinary teachers of my life’.
‘He was somewhat of a father figure to many of us,’ he said. ‘He kept in touch with successive generations of pupils and guided them through their early careers.’
Other pupils recounted how their former teacher once punched a man at a bus stop for being rude to an elderly lady.
Mrs Moore-Martin was headmistress at St Mary’s Catholic Primary School in Bicester, Oxfordshire. She had lived in her detached Maids Moreton home for more than 20 years. She was photographed meeting then Ukip leader Nigel Farage as he campaigned in the constituency in 2010. It is understood that as she lay critically ill in hospital, police were alerted to suspicions that she had been the victim of fraud.
She died on May 12 last year. The inquiry deepened when officers realised her neighbour had also died in similar circumstances. They found he, too, may have lost money. Post-mortem examinations have yet to identify exactly what led to their deaths.
After months of low-key investigations, police finally revealed yesterday they had arrested three men. Neighbour Betty Cook, 87, said: ‘Peter was always going on about his student Ben. He was living in the house with him. I think he was from Stowe School too.
She said Field moved in with Mrs Moore-Martin soon after Mr Farquhar’s death. Mrs Cook added: ‘Peter was the nicest man you could meet. He took a man in as a lodger and I didn’t see much of Peter after that.’ Another neighbour said Mr Farquhar became a recluse shortly before his death.
‘He used to tend to his garden but it became overgrown and he stopped walking his dog. Next thing we heard he was dead.’
A spokesman for Thames Valley Police declined to comment on details of the investigation.
‘Became a recluse’