A churchwarden found guilty of murdering an author has had his conviction overturned.
Benjamin Field, 36, was jailed for life in 2019 for the murder of Peter Farquhar, 69, a former master at Stowe public school.
Field appeared at the Court of Appeal in London on Thursday via video link from Frankland jail in Co Durham.
Lord Justice Edis, sitting with Mr Justice Goose and Mr Justice Butcher, announced: “This appeal will be allowed, the conviction for murder will be quashed and we order a retrial.”
The judges said their ruling “involved a point of law of general public importance” and “in this usual case” the prosecution was given permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. They ordered that Field remain in custody.
Field received a life sentence and was told he would serve a minimum of 36 years in jail following his trial at Oxford crown court in 2019. Field was found not guilty of the attempted murder of Ann Moore-Martin, a retired headteacher, who was Farquhar’s neighbour.
The trial was told that Farquhar was found dead on the sofa of his home in Maids Morten, Buckinghamshire, in 2015.
David Jeremy KC, representing Field, told the court last month that Mr Justice Sweeney, the trial judge, misdirected the jury on what evidence was needed to prove murder.
David Perry KC, for the prosecution, said that the question of how Farquhar’s death was caused “cannot be assessed in the abstract”. “It has to be assessed in its own factual setting,” he said.
Edis said Field accepted “that he had made the bottle of whisky available to Mr Farquhar”.
The judge added: “He said he left it as a temptation, whereas the prosecution alleged that they drank it together and that [Field] was present. On either account, Mr Farquhar drank the whisky knowingly and voluntarily.”
The court heard that the House of Lords ruled in 2008 that if the victim committed an act “voluntarily” when “free, deliberate and informed”, it “broke the chain of causation” between the alleged misconduct and the death.
The Court of Appeal said there was no evidence that Field “administered” the whisky and that the trial judge did not properly direct the jury to decide if Farquhar’s decision to drink the alcohol was “voluntary in the legal sense”.
The judges also ruled that the legal directions to the jury were “defective” with the use of the expression “and/or” in the three different alleged methods of causing death.
Field was a student at the University of Buckingham when he befriended Farquhar, who was a part-time lecturer. He became deputy churchwarden at Stowe parish church where Farquhar was a member of the congregation and was five days away from possible selection for ordination when he was arrested.
