‘The Sixth Commandment’ is an exceptionally written drama, matched in its excellence by the skilful portrayal of its main characters, particularly by Ann Reid and Timothy Spall. I’m in awe. As the episodes unfold, we are taken into the world of a real-life crime story. A murder committed by Benjamin Field. The acted persona of Benjamin is accurate to perfection. Eanna Hardwicke manages to, look, sound, and move just like the real Mr Field. Again, I am in awe.
As crime drama goes this is not your highly charged gruesome sensationalist indulgence. It’s. not ‘Line of Duty’. It is calculated, measured, dignified, chilling, understated even. Just like in fact the real-life Benjamin. He most certainly was all those things. But that is where my awe ceases. Because we’re not getting the full story, the full picture, that I understand is intentional. The writers have made very clear statements that they didn’t want the focus on the drama to be on Benjamin. The reason for this; respect for the victims and their families. I get that and it disappoints me.
No victim of murder stands in isolation. Much like there is no such thing as ‘just a baby’, there is always a baby and a mother. There is also never ‘just a victim’ there is always a victim and a murderer. Whilst the human condition can get its head around mother and baby, it struggles to hold both victim and murderer in mind. This separation, this splitting, may enable a kind of comfort, but it is never helpful and is particularly unhelpful for the understanding of murder, what we need to do to prevent it and how best to respond to those who do.
A life’s work with those who have murdered and on occasions the victims’ relatives, has never failed to keep me curious. My asking ‘why?’ and ‘how?’ has never ceased. What must be now hundreds of cases, have all provided, eventually, their own unique answers to these questions and in so doing I’ve been able to make meaningful contributions to the management of risk and the task of public protection. Key learning in this process has been recognition of the fact that focusing on the victims’ experiences tells us very little that we do not already know. It is to the behaviour and into the mind of the creator of victims that we must go. This task of course is much less attractive and is without the reward of making us feel good about ourselves.
For the last six years leading on the criminal justice response to chemsex crime for London, it has meant a lot of murder has come my way. 16 victims created by 12 perpetrators. The 4 victims of Steven Port will come easily to mind. But what about the others? No, most will struggle to name any of the other victims of chemsex context murder and certainly not those who murdered them. When it comes to murder, we are in fact very selective in who and what is remembered, this despite the assertion that it matters terribly. This selective remembering, this selective knowing, this selective recall, and as reflected in the decision of those responsible for ‘The Sixth Commandment’ to only focus on the victim’s story does us no favours.
For the armchair detective, there is an excellent documentary on the investigation into Benjamin. ‘Catching a Killer ‘– Ep 5 ‘Diary from Beyond the Grave’ (Channel 4). It’s an inspiring example of highly professional and compassionate policing. But like ‘The Sixth Commandment’ it only provides part of the picture. There are however some teasing glimpses that hint at the fuller story of Benjamin. His exquisitely polite behaviour in the custody suit. His stretching exercises on being remanded and his request to the custody Sergeant for reading material delivered in the manner of requesting a copy of something by Socrates from his local library. ‘You’re in a Police Station sweetheart’ I think I said to my television screen. ‘You’ll be lucky if they can conjure up a stained aging copy of the Sun’, I continued amusing myself. His request however is met with equal exquisite politeness and that starts to reveal to us something of the bigger picture. It’s a great, example of offence paralleling behaviour, and it worked.
Fact is, if our fascination is to be more than indulgence, is to be more than ‘concern’. If our fascination can be harnessed to play a role in the prevention of crime, in the management of risk and in public protection then Benjamin deserves a drama all of his own.
The real-life drama of Benjamin would have started at least three generations before he was born. That’s the number of generational influences we all hold within our unconscious processes. From his birth there then would be a range of biological, environmental, and psychological factors that combined to enable the development of a problematic personality structure or structures. It is these that played out and communicated themselves not just in his murderous behaviour but in all the ways he went about it and indeed in all the ways of his lived young life.
Since sentencing, Benjamin has not stopped being Benjamin. Within our custodial estate he continues to be exquisitely polite, highly intelligent, charming, helpful to others and he will continue to be all of this and more on his release. Therein lies his dangerousness and the vulnerability of many.
It is the ‘how?’ and ‘why?’, on release, that becomes crucially important for the management of risk and public protection. ‘Risk is Everyone’s Business’ is the title of ongoing training in this important task for officers within HMPPS. My conviction is however that ‘Everyone’ also needs to include the wider public including you. Benjamin committed murder in plain sight, as most people do in fact. It is that fact that needs to inform our awareness and thinking.
Benjamin is on my radar in the context of my current specialism, chemsex context crime, I and others have assessed him as ticking enough indicator boxes to be considered what we refer to a ‘chemsex nominal’. Suffice to say, from thinking about the whole picture of Benjamin the chemsex context could be very appealing to him on release and for all the reasons of power, risk, and vulnerability it encompasses. We need to be prepared and we need to think.
Holding someone in mind who has murdered, thinking about them is the only way anyone can come to an understanding of the ‘why?’ and ‘how?’. It is thinking about them that repetition can be managed, and the influence of causal factors minimised. I’ve often wondered if the Benjamin’s of the world have any comprehension just how much thought is invested in them and of the sort that goes way beyond news headlines, documentaries, and television dramas, no matter how good. Problem is that this thinking tends to happen after the event. Benjamin’s now known behaviour started long before he committed his crime and he’s not so unique. There will be other Benjamin’s building up to the commission of a similar offence right now. Only by us all having a mind for all of this will there be any chance of them being stopped or in the case of the Benjamin we know, being prevented from doing it all again.
As for, ‘Thou shall not kill’, not always as, as well as easy as perhaps we would care to think, but I guess we, as well as Benjamin all have a responsibility.
Br Stephen Morris fcc
