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On HMP Frankland’s B-wing, rows of cramped single cells are filled with sex offenders, child rapists, grooming gangs and people traffickers.
There is one, however, reserved for an ‘intelligent’ yet ‘sociopathic’ former church warden – one who admits he is a ‘naughty boy’ but denies being a cold-hearted killer.
He is Benjamin Field, the son of a Baptist who preyed upon the elderly, including 69-year-old university lecturer Peter Farquhar, who died in October 2015 after ingesting 60 per cent proof whisky and sleeping pills.
Field was later convicted of murdering Mr Farquhar at his home in the Buckinghamshire village of Maids Moreton after pretending to fall in love with him, drugging him and getting him to change his will.
His evil and predatory crimes only came to light after he began targeting one of Mr Farquhar’s neighbours, 83-year-old Ann Moore-Martin, a retired teacher who he manipulated by writing messages on her mirrors that were purportedly from God. She died of natural causes in May 2017.
Field, whose crimes were depicted in BBC drama The Sixth Commandment, admitted fraudulently being in relationships with the vulnerable pensioners as part of his sick plan to get them to alter their wills in his favour, but denied killing them.
This is the line that he maintains, even when engaging in small talk with prison guards at HMP Frankland – where he is serving a life sentence with a minimum of 36 years for the murder of Mr Farquhar.
A guard who recently left the notorious jail has, in fascinating detail, told the Daily Mail how Field spends his days behind bars and which wicked criminals he rubs shoulders with.
‘He’s a very intelligent man,’ the former prison officer admits. ‘There’s no doubt about it.
‘He denied ever doing it if you had any chat with him. He always said, “allegedly”, and claimed he didn’t actually do anything and that it was just all circumstance.
‘He said he’d been a bit of a naughty boy. He said he’d committed fraud and burglary, but he said he never killed anybody. That was his opinion.
‘He was a smart guy. There’s no way you can take that away from him. He had chess puzzles in his cell. He tried to keep his mind active.’
The officer, who says he built a strong rapport with Field, added: ‘I wouldn’t personally be surprised if he had done what he [is said to have] done, he did have an air of absolute sociopath. I don’t know how else to describe it.
‘You could get on with him, have a conversation and have a bit of a laugh at him, but also you could tell he thought he was smarter than you, which may well be true.
‘He didn’t give off a dangerous aura, but he didn’t give off that he’s a normal person.’
In November, Field was given an award for helping some of the country’s most dangerous criminals pass maths exams.
The killer received the award from the Prison Reform Trust, who commended him for ‘teaching maths to prisoners, helping many to reach GCSE level, and creating a community of learners studying with the Open University’.
A prison source suggested this could boost his efforts in his latest bid for freedom. He added that he was ‘not surprised’ Field had won the award, explaining: ‘Prisoners love their certificates, it’s the kind of thing that you might not expect of a grown man.’
The Daily Mail revealed Field was back in court earlier this month, appearing via video link from HMP Frankland in an attempt to convince an appeal judge that his conviction is ‘unsafe’ and that he is in prison for a murder which he ‘simply didn’t do’.
While Court of Appeal judges will give their decision at a later date, the hearing raises the prospect that a man described by psychiatrists as being both ‘narcissistic’ and ‘psychopathic’ could be released in a matter of weeks.
‘Either he’s an absolute out and out sociopath or he genuinely believes he’s innocent,’ one of his former guards tells me.
Has Field used his manipulative tactics on guards and inmates? ‘Whenever you’re dealing with a prisoner, you anticipate that they’re trying to manipulate you in some way or another,’ the officer says. ‘And it was always very cheery and very friendly [with Field].’
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Like all prisoners, Field spends his nights at HMP Frankland locked up in a single cell.
The Category A prison, which holds around 850 male inmates, is home to serial killer Levi Bellfield, killer cop Wayne Couzens and Manchester Arena bomb plotter Hashem Abedi.
Soham child killer Ian Huntley was serving his life sentence at Frankland too, but died earlier this month after he was allegedly attacked in a workshop with a metal bar.
Field, along with some of Britain’s worst criminals, is let out of his cell at around 8.30am during the week, and slightly later on the weekends.
Our source reveals that Field is a laundry worker. He added: ‘He would come out of his cell and start washing clothes for other prisoners because that was his job.
‘In the time when the washing machine was on, he’d go about and do his various bits of business he wanted to do, whether that was cooking or talking with other cleaners, whatever it was.’
Prisoners must return to their cells from around 12pm to 2pm while the officers go for lunch.
They go through the same routine until 5pm, then from around 5.30pm to 7pm they would have evening association.
The guard described Field as ‘relatively outgoing’ and that he would spend most of his social time with other inmates in their cells.
He added: ‘He wasn’t quiet or withdrawn or anything. You would see him in a cell with other prisoners a lot which is always tough to say what they get up to.
‘There was another prisoner called Richard Moors, who he used to spend a bit of time trying to teach how to read. He’s [Moors] not a very intelligent man. They used to knock about on the cell together.’
Moors and his girlfriend Isabella Gossling were jailed for life in 2015 for stabbing to death 22-year-old Phillip Nicholson, who had learning difficulties, and recording the brutal attack on a phone.
The former guard explains that Frankland’s B-wing holds Vulnerable Prisoners (VPs).
He added: ‘You’re talking groomers and people traffickers and people who have raped or murdered children – and he would mix with those people.’
Field was jailed for life at Oxford Crown Court in August 2019, with a minimum of 36 years.
But he has launched another bid for freedom and his case has been referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).
Field’s lawyers claim that the original trial judge, Mr Justice Sweeney, did not ask the jury to decide whether he had actually caused Mr Farquhar to drink the strong whisky and swallow Dalmane sleeping pills which, combined, killed him.
His barrister, David Jeremy KC, claimed that even if Field supplied the whisky and sleeping pills, the prosecution at his trial had provided no evidence to show that swallowing the substances which killed Mr Farquhar had been anything other than a ‘voluntary’ act by the deceased.
They argue the 2019 conviction was therefore unsafe.
During the original trial, the crown court heard university lecturer Mr Farquhar had been duped into a fake relationship and even gone through a ‘betrothal’ ceremony with Field.
The court heard Field carried out a sustained ‘gaslighting’ plot aimed at making Mr Farquhar question his sanity, while giving him sleeping tablets and alcohol, when the lecturer was trying to abstain.
Mr Farquhar’s lifeless body was discovered at his home in October 2015. An initial post-mortem examination put his death down to alcohol but a later one also found the sleeping medication, which should not be taken with alcohol, in his bloodstream.
Prior to his death, the University of Buckingham lecturer had published three novels and even dedicated the final book to Field, who went on to deliver the eulogy at his funeral.
A post-mortem examination later put his death down to ‘acute alcohol toxicity’.
Field defrauded Mr Farquhar of more than £160,000.
His crimes only came to light after he turned his attention to Mr Farquhar’s neighbour, Ms Moore-Martin.
Field gaslighted the deeply religious retired headteacher by writing messages on her mirrors that were purportedly from God.
He swindled Ms Moore-Martin out of £4,000 to buy a car and £27,000 for a dialysis machine but was acquitted of her attempted murder.
Field has also paid out £124,665.03 ‘distributed as part of the agreed order to the victims in this case’ from selling a flat which he bought with his victims’ savings.
He first appealed his conviction in 2021 and failed, before a bid to reopen the challenge was refused by the Court of Appeal in 2022.
Applications to the Supreme Court followed before the CCRC became involved, referring the case back to appeal judges.
