The Sixth Commandment: Who was Peter Farquhar and what happened to him?

A new BBC TV drama has begun to air which tells the story of a chilling true crime. The Sixth Commandment focuses on the deaths of Peter Farquhar and Ann Moore-Martin, featuring a cast led by Timothy Spall and Anne Reid.

Audiences have praised Spall for his performance following the first episode which was shown on Monday night (July 17). Spall plays Farquhar, who was targeted by killer Benjamin Field in a manipulative scheme.

Field made Peter think they had begun a gay relationship together, and tried to benefit from the older man's will before eventually murdering him. Speaking to the Radio Times, Spall said a "tragic" aspect of the case was "the optimism and hope that was instilled in these elderly people".

Read more: True story behind The Sixth Commandment, full cast list and where you've seen them before

Spall added: "It’s so much about loneliness and love, and dreams being fulfilled that are actually too good to be true."

Read on below to find out more about Peter Farquhar, his links to Manchester and what happened to him.

Peter Farquhar was an Edinburgh-born teacher and novelist who, after attending Latymer Upper School in London and Churchill College, Cambridge, came to teach English at Manchester Grammar School (MGS), where he worked for more than a decade from the age of 24.

According to a column in the school newspaper, dated February 1976 and written by future journalist Michael Crick, who was a pupil at MGS at the time, Peter lived in Heaton Moor, watched Manchester United "three or four times a year" and was "about to be done for driving at 60mph on Princess Parkway".

Crick, who maintained a friendship with Peter, wrote in The Sunday Times: "Scores of Old Mancunians testify that Peter was an