Finding tonight's play 'The Sixth Commandment' a difficult watch

Well, I’ve finished it and am still none the wiser about Martin. What I am confused about is that there must have been an autopsy if Peter died at home alone. So what was the actual cause of death that was recorded at the time? And how was it actually proved that Ben was with him when he died?

maddyone

Doodledog like you I’m also puzzled by the role of Martin in it all. Do you think he was duped by Field into giving a certain amount of help?
Like the jury, I’m not convinced that he willingly participated in murder. Field was both persuasive and believable and Martin appeared rather gullible.

I’ve just started watching this and am finding it gripping. Just about to watch the last two episodes. But I’m struggling, without rewatching what I’ve already seen, to work out where Martin fits in with all this. My uncle changed his will and left his house to a young woman who befriended him via the church. Supposedly she stopped visiting him but posted sandwiches through his letter box. She cut him off from his family, especially those that had helped him after his wife had died ( he had no children). There was nothing we could do to overturn the will. As with the people in this series, it wasn’t about the money but the unfairness of it. I don’t know if she did the same to other people, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find that she did. We do get requests on our local Facebook page for people to befriend lonely elderly people and it does cross my mind sometimes that it might be opening them up to this sort of thing as I’m not aware of checks being made on the people who offer to help.

Watched the documentary, and realised how realistic the drama was. If it was fiction, we'd be thinking " That couldn't happen......that's so unlikely..." but it was all real. So shocking.

Oreo

He couldn’t have been found guilty of murdering Anne as she was in hospital and after that moved to a care home where she later died.
There was no evidence.

He was charged with her attempted murder. He may have drugged her but that must have been impossible to prove with the time lapse.

I feel she died because of the effects of the poisons on her body. The way she changed in such a short time after he targeted her clearly showed that she would have died shortly (after having altered her will in favour of Field) except that after being admitted to hospital, unlike Peter she wasn’t sent home but sent to a care home instead. This lengthy period of time allowed the poison to be eliminated from her body, but in any case there would still have been evidence but unfortunately no one actually looked for evidence and presumably she was cremated rather than buried. It was fortuitous that Peter was buried rather than cremated otherwise I think Field would have carried on killing elderly people under the clever disguise of being an ordained priest.
He was the personification of evil.

Anne did die but it was a natural death. She was a lot older than Peter and the shame of what happened and the distress no doubt contributed to her passing.

maddyone

I’m puzzled by the jury’s decision to find Field not guilty for the attempted murder of Anne.

I don’t think they had enough evidence. Presumably as she didn’t die they couldn’t do the forensic tests on her that they did on Peter’s body. She lived some time after the poisoning so her body had probably flushed out the poison by the time anyone realised.

TerriT

Callistemon. Please can you tell me how I can look the summing up on line as I had no idea that would be possible. The summing up by judges is always very interesting and quite telling of their unspoken opinion in my experience.

Hi TerriT if you Google
Closing Sentences of Mr. Justice Sweeney you will find the seven pages of his summing up.

I only managed half of episode one. Timothy Spall magnificent . The vulnerability so wickedly expoloited

Watched the last episode yesterday. Certainly one of the better series on this year, very chilling.

Callistemon. Please can you tell me how I can look the summing up on line as I had no idea that would be possible. The summing up by judges is always very interesting and quite telling of their unspoken opinion in my experience.

I wonder if Ben Field is pleased that a whole drama was made about him?

He couldn’t have been found guilty of murdering Anne as she was in hospital and after that moved to a care home where she later died.
There was no evidence.

I’m watching the first episode. What a brilliant cast
It’s gripping and chilling

suzikyoo. Wow that’s creepy. Just thinking about being near that man fills me with shivers. Your intuition was spot on

Binge-watched all 4 episodes last night and thought the acting was impressive. I sat in some of the same lectures as Ben Field at Buckingham Uni and can remember remarking at lunch to some fellow students how he made me feel 'unsettled' somehow. They laughed. Can there be such a thing as an 'air of menace', I wonder.

It must have been strange for prisoners in his jail to watch it. I wonder it will impact on how he is treated.

What a brilliant true series.

Ben was an arch manipulator. I wonder if he is like that in prison with the inmates and warders.

I think Martyn was another lonely soul manipulated by Field.

We didn't hear all the evidence nor the judge's summing up.
It is available online.

maddyone

Doodledog like you I’m also puzzled by the role of Martin in it all. Do you think he was duped by Field into giving a certain amount of help?
Like the jury, I’m not convinced that he willingly participated in murder. Field was both persuasive and believable and Martin appeared rather gullible.

That was the bit of the story I couldn't quite 'get'. Martin did seem a bit vulnerable, and I wasn't sure whether he too had fallen for Ben's charms, or whether he just didn't understand what he was doing.

It's brilliant and very similar to what happened to my lovely old Scottish uncle Stanley Pardoe who died in Houston a few years ago. Stanley died childless & when his 2nd wife died he moved from Helensburgh to Houston to be close to his 2nd cousin, Anne Marie & Iain Brown. We spent lots of time with him throughout my life, he was protective of my dad as their mum had died young & Stanley stepped into big brother role. But once S moved to Houston contact got more difficult, he was so deaf we'd ring Ann Marie to see if he was around to visit, we live in Gloucestershire so its a long way to go, but the answer was always no. In the end we just went there, but A-M was also there, and said he was tired so the visit was brief. When he died we discovered he'd sold the family business, Turners that started in Brown St. Glasgow which he'd inherited from his uncle Lenny who he promised that he'd leave his shares to a Pardoe cos he didn't get on with his business partner Alex turner, for £600+ 5yrs prior to his death but when he died he left just £220k including the value of his house. I got his health records via the court, the GP refused my request because it would make someone very depressed so I went to court as a litigant in person. Fortunately I've written loads of court reports so it wasn't difficult & the records were given to me. A GP friend looked through the records and saw nothing to indicate confusion or similar, the bar for proving mental health issues retrospectively is very high, but he was weak, low & depressed. He broke a rib by turning in bed because of osteoporosis & had various other conditions and painkillers. We don't know what happened to the £400k but lots was given away to the pharmacist for example, and many neighbours. I involved the police and they were good, but they couldn't prove misdemeanour. I think AM deliberately isolated Stanley from my sister and I so she could control his money. I have the court report I wrote if anyone wants to read it.

i thought the actor looked v like the real DCI mark glover, who retired in may 2018 when he was 50. he returned to TVP as a civilian investigator to continue working on the case and bring it to trial.
he is a youthful looking man.
re MS, let us be careful what we say about a person who was found not guilty.

Doodledog like you I’m also puzzled by the role of Martin in it all. Do you think he was duped by Field into giving a certain amount of help?
Like the jury, I’m not convinced that he willingly participated in murder. Field was both persuasive and believable and Martin appeared rather gullible.

Callistemon21

21/7/2023:

^The Oxford Mail has learned that the Criminal Cases Review Commission has received an application that it investigates the case - with a view to seeing whether senior judges should hear a fresh appeal.^

Good heavens!

Field does not give up!