There is “no doubt at all” that a church warden who mentally tortured and then murdered a university lecturer to inherit his estate would have gone on to kill again, his victim’s brother has said.

Peter Farquhar, 69, was killed in the Buckinghamshire village of Maids Moreton by Benjamin Field, 28, who had formed a close relationship with him before secretly drugging him.

Mr Farquhar’s brother Ian said: “His brain was his gift and it was significant that was one of the things that Ben Field attacked.

“He was very sharp in education but also in watching and understanding people.”

As well as manipulating the English literature specialist, Field also rubbed shoulders with other intellectuals without them suspecting he was up to anything untoward.

“He attended stuff with my brother with the highest people in the land academically, and they all thought he was fine,” said Ian Farquhar.

He said he had thought the circumstances surrounding his brother’s death had been odd.

“At the time I thought, ‘there’s something wrong here’. When I saw my brother there and the bottle and the glass, it seemed to me like it was set up.

“When the police came and spoke to us, things all started fitting into place very quickly.”

Field had hoped the death would look like suicide or an accident.

Ian Farquhar’s wife Sue said she had been shocked by the lack of emotion shown by Field after the death.

“After someone had been living with somebody for so long and professes love, we thought there might have been a little bit more reaction,” she said.

Ian Farquhar said that while Field had been “very unhelpful” following the death, “he was pretty keen to sell the house”.

Ian Farquhar and wife Sue
Ian Farquhar and wife Sue (Tom Horton/PA)

Field was convicted of killing Mr Farquhar at Oxford Crown Court on Friday and awaits sentencing.

Ian Farquhar said “justice has been done” and “society needs to be protected” from Field.

The exhuming of Mr Farquhar’s body, the police investigation and the subsequent trial had been an emotional ordeal, he added.

“I don’t think the sadness will leave us for quite a while,” he said.

He said he had “no doubt at all” that Field, who has not shown any regret or remorse, would have targeted other victims had he not been caught.

Field’s scheme began to unravel when he targeted Mr Farquhar’s neighbour, Ann Moore-Martin.

The Baptist minister’s son subjected Miss Moore-Martin, a deeply religious retired head teacher who he was in a sexual relationship with, to the same campaign of gaslighting – psychological manipulation – by writing messages on her mirrors purporting to be from God.