This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A church warden on trial for the murder of a man he befriended showed “no grief or emotion” after his death, a court has heard.

Benjamin Field, 28, is accused of suffocating Peter Farquhar, 69, at his house in the village of Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire, and the attempted murder of Ann Moore-Martin, 83.

Farquhar’s brother, Ian, told Oxford crown court on Wednesday that Field had seemed strangely unaffected on the morning Peter’s body was found by his cleaner.

“I felt that, in retrospect, this was not the response of somebody who had just lost a good, close friend, which was my understanding of the relationship,” he said.

Field has admitted moving things around in the retired teacher and part-time lecturer’s home to make him believe he was losing his sanity and secretly administering hallucinogenic drugs to him.

Ian Farquhar, 68, who was close to his brother but saw him infrequently, said he had learned of his death in a phone call from Field.

Farquhar’s family also learned of his apparent illness about six months before his death through a phone call from Field and a vicar at the church they attended.

Ian Farquhar said he had initially believed his brother’s problems had been caused by a longstanding urinary infection but Field had tried to diagnose him with a rare cancer. A neurologist later advised that Farquhar should stop drinking alcohol.

The court heard that, before his death, Field had been living with and sharing a bed with Farquhar, although he had told Ian Farquhar he was not homosexual but wanted to “love and care” for his brother.

Ian Farquhar said he had been aware of his brother’s homosexuality, which Peter Farquhar “struggled with because he was also a committed Christian”.

He added that his brother’s deteriorating condition affected him both physically and mentally. He had been taken to hospital twice as a result of falling down the stairs and was also “beginning to think he’d lost his mind”.

Robert Wilson, a retired schoolteacher who had been a close friend of Peter Farquhar’s, described him as lonely and said he would often confide in him about his sexuality and emotional problems.

The lead prosecutor, Oliver Saxby QC, said Wilson’s name had been on a list written by Field entitled “100 clients”, which also included the names of Peter Farquhar and Ann Moore-Martin.

Wilson described Farquhar as a steady drinker but said he “never saw him drunk”. He said in the months before his death, Farquhar had told him: “I sleepwalk and I get up and I move things around. I don’t remember it at all but the boys, they find these things.”

Wilson described Field as arrogant and said two small gifts – of studio pots, which he collected – “reinforced my sense he was a very strange young man. I didn’t know what to make of them.”

At a coroner’s inquest, Farquhar’s death was recorded as caused by alcoholism.

The court also heard evidence from Field’s former girlfriend Nina Eriksen-Grey, who said in relation to Farquhar, he “only spoke about Peter’s drinking”.

Field’s younger brother Tom Field is also a defendant and has been charged with one count of fraud. He and his brother are alleged to have deceived Moore-Martin into handing over £27,000 for a kidney dialysis machine on the false premise that the 24-year-old needed it to survive.

The trial continues.