Church ‘must be vigilant’ of the elderly after killer jailed

THE Church of England has admitted it must be “more vigilant” after a vicar’s son was jailed for life for seducing and murdering a pensioner.

Benjamin Field was yesterday told he would serve at least 36 years behind bars for killing Peter Farquhar, a novelist and former teacher at Stowe school.

Field, 28, murdered Peter Farquhar, 69, to inherit his estate after convincing him he was losing his mind.

At the time of his arrest Field had a list of 100 other targets, including parishioners at Stowe parish church. He was five days away from possible selection for ordination, and had become deputy church warden at Stowe and secretary of the parochial church council.

Detectives branded Field a psychopath and said he would have posed an “ongoing danger to society” had he not been stopped.

The Diocese of Oxford yesterday said in a statement that the church must “learn what we can” from the “long, complex and disturbing case”.

“The church and wider society needs to be ever more vigilant of those who can be made vulnerable by the likes of Ben Field, simply because they are elderly or lonely,” it added.

The court heard Field secretly gave Mr Farquhar drugs, hoping the murder would look like suicide or an accident.

It was only when he began targeting Mr Farquhar’s elderly neighbour, Ann Moore-martin, in the village of Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire, that his scheme began to unravel.

Imposing a life sentence, Mr Justice Sweeney said Field “lived by deception and deceit and had been a well-practised and able liar”.