The BBC’s latest true–crime drama The Sixth Commandment truly has to be seen to be believed.
Based on a shocking series of real events, the show tells the story of Ben Field, a student who preyed upon two separate pensioners, seducing and attempting to kill them in order to gain access to their money.
It’s been receiving rave reviews from across the board; the Standard called it a show “that does not shy away from depicting the uncomfortable.” But who’s actually in the series – and who are the real-life characters that they’re playing? Here’s what, and who, you need to know.
Peter Farquhar, played by Timothy Spall
Veteran actor Timothy Spall (The King’s Speech, Harry Potter) takes on the role of Peter Farquhar, one of Field’s victims. Born in Edinburgh in 1946, Farquhar was the son of a physician, who attended Latymer Upper School in London before studying at Churchill College, Cambridge and obtaining a first.
From there, he went to teach at Manchester Grammar School. One of his pupils, columnist Michael Crick, wrote that he had “an acute understanding of the problems of modern adolescent boys. For some, he became almost like a second father.” He later rose to become Head of English at Stowe, the prestigious public school attended by Sir Richard Branson and David Niven.
Farquhar initially met Field in 2011 in his capacity as a lecturer at the University of Buckingham, where he worked part-time in addition to writing books.
A closeted gay man and dedicated evangelical Anglican Christian, Farquhar led a fulfilling life (he was part of The Stowe Reading Group and regularly attended galleries and concerts) but had trouble coming to terms with his sexuality; indeed, until meeting Field, he was “celibate all his life,” as Crick put it.
He was also a published author, and wrote Between Boy And Man, a novel about a public school teacher who is falsely accused of sexual abuse, and also his struggle to reconcile his faith with his sexuality.
Field and Farquhar’s relationship started in 2013, but soon took a dark turn.
Field continually drugged the former lecturer – including with powerful hallucinogenic 2CB – and spiked his drinks with bioethanol (a pure form of alcohol) and poteen (a traditional Irish spirit with ABV up to 90 per cent), leading to blackouts, which he then exploited: Field would delete Farquhar’s phone contacts and gaslight him and his relatives into thinking he had dementia.
Field later told the jury at his trial that he did this "for no other reason other than it was cruel, to upset and torment Peter – purely out of meanness.”
In 2013, Farquhar changed his will to leave Field £2,000 and half of his house.
In May 2014, the pair became engaged during a betrothal ceremony where they exchanged knives at a church in North London. Writing in his diary, Field would later describe it as “one of the happiest moments of my life.” The teacher had been suffering from loneliness, and saw Field as the answer to his prayers: “Gone are the fears of dying alone,” he wrote.
But Farquhar quickly became ill as a result of the gradual poisoning. He sought help for his blackouts and hallucinations, but medical staff were unable to discover what the problem was – they were led to believe that his confusion was due to dementia.
Farquhar’s diary entries over this period are unsettling, as it’s clear that he suspects something is deeply wrong but cannot put his finger on what it could be – the truth, after all, was far too outlandish to even imagine. “I am sleeping much longer at night. What a contrast with the year before! But there is something not right about it,” he wrote in one diary entry dated four months before his death.
When Farquhar was admitted to hospital for consuming too many sleeping pills alongside almost half a litre of gin, just one month after Field moved into his house, the toxic concoction was dismissed as an unfortunate overdose, rather than viewed as something more sinister.
But Farquhar’s mental decline didn’t tally with other people’s views of the man. “When one of his young lodgers rang me in the summer of 2015 to say that Peter was having mental troubles stemming from a serious alcohol problem, I was very surprised,” Crick wrote. “It didn’t make sense.”
In 2015, Farquhar was found dead at the age of 69 by his cleaner, on the sofa of his three-bedroom home. His death was initially treated as non suspicious, until his neighbour Ann Moore-Martin was hospitalised, two years later.
Moore-Martin’s niece came across Field at her Aunt’s house when she went to pick up some of her belongings, and found his behaviour arrogant and suspicious. She reported him to the police. Given that Farquhar and Moore-Martin lived just three doors down from one another, and that Field was the link between the two pensioners, the police launched an investigation.
As part of it, they exhumed Farquhar’s body, and the post-mortem showed that the writer had consumed a dangerous amount of drugs and alcohol before his death. His cause of death was revised, with police now believing that he was likely suffocated by Field.
Ann Moore-Martin, played by Anne Reid
Born in 1933 in Herne Bay, pensioner and former headmistress Ann Moore-Martin was 81 when she first met Field in November 2014.
Moore-Martin was unmarried, a devout Catholic, had no children and had been relatively isolated since the Nineties, when her mother Isabel (whom she lived with and cared for) had died.
Over the course of her career, she taught at a variety of primary schools, including St Thomas’ in Canterbury, Kent; in 1983, she moved to Maids Moreton to assume the role of headmistress at St. Mary’s Catholic Primary School in Bicester.
Speaking to Metro, one of Moore-Martin’s former students Katherine O’Donnell explained that “most of us have been lucky enough to have teachers in our lives who we remember, and we value… I remember her as being exceptionally kind and empathetic and joyous in her teaching.” Neighbours described her as somebody who would “live for the Church” and help anybody in need; she was often seen walking her dog around the village and had survived cancer.
Despite Field being in his early twenties at the time, the pair struck up a romantic and sexual relationship, and Field began staying frequently at Moore-Martin’s house. Speaking to the BBC, her sister-in-law described Moore-Martin as “a love-struck teenager”. Field sent Moore-Martin a photo of himself which she kept on her dresser as if it were a sort of shrine.
Field began manipulating her, using many of the same methods he used to control Farquhar – including writing love poems, one of which read: "I love you, I long to make a life with you, a life of sharing, of mutual nourishment, in love and grace."
He also embarked on a sexual relationship with her. When asked in court, “did you find Ann sexually attractive?” Field said no – but the court also heard how he took a photograph of Ann performing a sex act on him, writing about the moment afterwards in his diaries.
The court heard how Field played “mind games” on Moore-Martin, giving her a handheld clicker that she could press every time she thought of him. In his diaries, he also wrote about potential methods of killing her, including via a heart-attack brought about by sex, or choking on her dentures.
Moore-Martin began isolating herself from her relatives. Field told her in 2016 that he needed money to care for his seriously ill brother, and she believed him, ultimately giving him almost £28,000 for a dialysis machine and £4,000 to buy a new car.
Field also preyed on Moore-Martin’s deep faith, writing notes on her bathroom mirror that he pretended were from God, with the intention of getting her to change her will to include him (which she then did, disinheriting her niece in the process).
Field, who seemed to take great satisfaction from his mind-games, took pictures of the various notes he left on Moore-Martin’s mirrors: “Pray for Ben, Ben loves you,” said one. “This good you will can never be undone, peace is yours in me, your Lord,” said another. In the photographs of these mirrors, which the police later discovered, Field is also in frame, staring at the text from behind his phone camera.
In 2016, Moore-Martin’s health started to deteriorate; she ended up in hospital in February 2017 after suffering from a seizure. Moore-Martin’s niece, Ann-Marie Blake, called Thames Valley Police following her exchange with Field and she accused the con-man of manipulating her aunt. Later, Moore-Martin removed Field from her will; she was mortified that she had been duped.
According to Diana Davies, the solicitor who drafted Moore-Martin’s will, the ex-headmistress said to her: “Now you see me in my right mind – I have been manipulated.”
Moore-Martin died shortly after, but this last act led to an investigation into Field, and Farquhar’s death: Farquhar’s body was exhumed, revealing huge amounts of alcohol, psychedelics and prescription drugs in his system.
Ben Field, played by Éanna Hardwicke
Normal People alumnus Hardwicke plays the role of Ben Field, the medically diagnosed psychopath and killer who was convicted of Farquhar’s murder.
He grew up in the town of Olney in nearby Northamptonshire; his mother was a Liberal Democrat councillor and his father a Baptist minister; his family were described as the “backbone of the community”.
Field attended the University of Buckingham, where Farquhar worked as a lecturer. They met in 2011 when Field, who was in the final year of his English Literature degree, enrolled on the Romantic literature course that Farquhar taught.
Only 20 years old at the time, Field quickly became close with Farquhar, before exploiting their relationship and abusing him. By the end of his MA, they were living together – and though Farquhar thought Field was in love with him, Field was actually also in a relationship with several others, including Ann Moore-Martin, the elderly pensioner who lived down the road from Farquhar (Moore-Martin and Farquhar’s relationship overlapped by five months).
Though he was unemployed, Field volunteered as a church warden and at a care home. He was in the process of becoming an Anglican Vicar (and was almost ordained), which must have appealed to the deeply religious Farquhar.
By the looks of it, Field forensically planned the undoing of his victims: “He revelled in what he was doing, the planning of what he was doing to Peter Farquhar, and to Ann Moore-Martin, and revelled in the particular details,” said Chris Derrick, from the Crown Prosecution Service. “That included the drugs that he was administering to Peter Farquhar, and it also included the disorientation – tricks – he was playing on both victims.”
In Field’s home, the police found detailed notes about Moore-Martin and Farquhar, as well as a dictaphone full of disturbing raps: “Benjamin’s my right hand by which I’ll allow you to suffer,” says one. “And Field is the soil in the ground I’ll put you under.”
In one of his diaries, Field makes detailed notes about the day’s activities, even writing the amount and type of drugs administered to Farquhar. “Breakfast in bed. 2.5mg diclaz in toast,” says one entry: Diclazepam is a benzodiazepine, which the police on the case described as a “psychoactive drug”.
Field even recorded Farquhar when the vulnerable pensioner was drugged. In a deeply distressing video now shared online, Farquhar can be seen slurring and confused as Field prompts him to talk about what he is experiencing: “I feel I am so dependent,” says Farquhar in the clip. “It’s such a strange world, the whole thing… I actually… used to be sort of competent.”
The most hideous revelation from Field’s diaries is perhaps one page in which he has drawn a grave next to Peter’s name and then written “Hole’s the goal,” next to it. Field then has several bullet points under the heading “final speeches”, which the police thought could be points that Field was planning to say to Farquhar. One bullet point says “I hated you all along”. Another says, “this is my house”. Then, on the same page-spread there is a time scale: next to the number “2015” Farquhar has written “end Peter”.
In 2019, Field was jailed for life after being found guilty of Farquhar’s murder. He is currently serving a 36-year sentence, while his co-accused, Martyn Smith (who received £10,000 from Peter’s will) was cleared.
It was found that Field had taken £140,000 from selling Farquhar’s home, as well as £20,000 from his will. However, he was cleared of planning Moore-Martin’s murder. During the hearing, the court also heard about a list Farquhar had made of up to 100 other targets that he was planning to exploit for accommodation or money, including his grandparents, parents and siblings.
At the sentencing, the judge, Mr Sweeney, said that the evidence “clearly demonstrated grandiosity, a sense of superiority towards others, the exploitation of others to achieve personal gain, the need to belittle and humiliate others, fixation on fantasies of power and success, intelligence, a need for admiration from others, and a sense of entitlement together with an unwillingness to empathise with the feelings, needs and wishes of others."
Ann-Marie Blake, played by Annabel Scholey
Ann-Marie Blake is the niece of Ann Moore-Martin, one of the pensioners preyed upon by Field. Moore-Martin never had children of her own, but was very close to Blake, and when she started a relationship with Field she began to isolate herself from her family.
Speaking at the trial at Oxford Crown Court, Blake said: “Although she was my aunt, she was more like a mum and she was like a grandmother to my children.”
Though Moore-Martin spoke to Blake often, Field began to intercept their calls and letters, deleting Blake’s messages on her answering machine.
“It was increasingly difficult to get access to her,” said Blake. “We started to get more concerned with the amount of time she was spending with someone who was a stranger to us.”
When Moore-Martin was hospitalised after a seizure in February 2017, Blake went to her aunt’s house to pick up some belongings. While she was there, Field popped round and made Blake feel uncomfortable. “He made me feel like I was in his house,” Blake reportedly said to the jury. The very next day Blake called the police.
By the looks of it, Field had been playing the same cruel mind games with Moore-Martin: “I keep losing things. I put something down and when I go to get it again it’s gone, but it’s OK because Ben always finds it,” Moore-Martin had apparently said to Blake.
The resulting investigation led the police to re-examine Field’s relationship with Farquhar, which eventually led to Field’s arrest.
According to Blake, Moore-Martin never recovered from the betrayal. “She went through a whole array of emotions and angst about it,” she told the Express. “She said, ‘You know, I’m an intelligent woman. I was a headmistress. I’ve taught children. How could I be so stupid? How can I let this happen?”
“We reassured her she wasn’t stupid, that this could have happened to anybody. But she didn’t want to be portrayed as being vulnerable and elderly.”
During the making of the TV show, Blake spoke at length to its creators, in particular screenwriter Sarah Phelps. “The story being out there isn’t perhaps as much of a bad thing as I thought it would be in terms of awareness of this kind of crime,” she added.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re an octogenarian or a teenager, you can be taken in and gaslighted at any age”.
Liz Zettl, played by Sheila Hancock
Liz Zettl became the oldest court witness in British history when she testified at the age of 101 at Ben Field’s trial.
The daughter of a London stockbroker, she started working for Stowe School in 1938 – befriending its famous headmaster JF Roxburgh and manning the school telephone. In 1942, she left to join the war effort, but fell in love with the school’s Head of Modern Languages, Ewald Zettl. The pair married in 1947.
Zettl was friends with both Moore-Martin and Farquhar. When the police probe into Field’s behaviour started, she was also renting one of her rooms out to Martyn Smith, who was later accused of being Field’s accomplice.
Though Zettl spoke warmly of Smith in her testimony – the pair went for curries together – she recalled being puzzled when a copy of her front door key was found in Field’s possession.
Smith and Field were also accused of possessing a copy of Zettl’s will (with the intention of finding out how much the pensioner was ‘worth’), and it is believed that she was intended to be Field’s third victim. She died on 11th March 2023, aged 105.
Martyn Smith, played by Conor MacNeill
Hailing from Redruth in Cornwall, Martyn Smith met Ben Field during their time as students at the University of Buckingham and the pair became friends.
Billing himself as a professional magician operating out of Bristol and Cornwall (as well as somebody who had been doing magic tricks since the age of five), Smith struggled to turn it into a living: one old article from the Bath Chronicle describes how, during one particularly unsuccessful show, members of the audience asked for a refund. He had allegedly failed to perform a magic trick multiple times, before apologising and promising to take time to “perfect his routine”.
Smith went on to move into both Farquhar and Moore-Martin’s houses as a lodger, before living with suspected third victim Liz Zettl.
During his time with Farquhar, Smith ended up caring for the pensioner as his health deteriorated; he, along with Field, persuaded Farquhar to publish his book Bitter Heart, which the lecturer dedicated to both of them. The pair also contacted many of Farquhar’s friends and family with the aim of, they said, making a documentary about his life and career.
According to Blake’s testimony during the trial, she was present when Field and Smith came to Moore-Martin’s house to remove their belongings, and Smith “stood there smirking and laughing like it was some sort of joke, like he found the whole thing funny.”
Smith also benefited financially from Field’s scheming: he was left £10,000 from Farquhar’s will, which Smith later said was a surprise. During the Oxford trial, Diana Davies, the solicitor who had organised the wills of both Moore-Martin and Farquhar, said that only a few months after Farquhar’s death, Smith had emailed her asking about when the funds would land in his account.
Though he was charged for the murder of Farquhar and conspiracy to murder Moore-Martin (in addition to charges of fraud and burglary) Smith was found not guilty of all charges.
Ian Farquhar, played by Adrian Rawlins
Ian is Peter’s younger brother by five years. He is married to Sue, who is played by Amanda Root, and the real-life couple share two sons. Just like his brother, Ian is religious: when speaking to the Thames Valley Police about the family’s ordeal, Ian said that he and Sue’s faith in God helped them to “resist the resentment that we felt, to put a crock in the anger”.
According to Ian, he and Peter were close – Ian has described Peter as “loving”, “caring” and “very thoughtful” – but they didn’t live near one another so didn’t often meet face to face. This meant that as Peter became sick, Ian was ultimately grateful to Field for looking after his sibling: little did he know that Peter was in fact being poisoned by Field.
Today, Ian has said he finds Field’s behaviour “astonishing”. Speaking to The Mirror, reflecting back on meeting Field for the first time, Ian said, “I thought he was very odd. Part of me did think ‘what was this 20-year-old man doing with a 65-year-old?’.”
The circumstances around Peter’s death have been particularly difficult for the Farquhars to come to terms with: in the same recorded interview with Thames Valley Police Sue became emotional as Ian spoke about the challenge of coping with the pressure of the case. “Poor Sue,” says Ian. “Who is not like that at all really, just dissolved into tears over the pressure of it all. We really had to look after each other quite a bit.”
Ian has now shared a warning to others: “Be ever so careful, if a young person, or somebody unexpected, walks into your life, or the life of a loved one, when they’re vulnerable and lonely,” he said. “There must be other people like Ben Field around outside and we wouldn’t want anybody to have to go through this.”
