Peter Craxton is a character appearing in the episode Bantling Boy of the ITV crime drama Midsomer Murders.
As a little boy, Peter delighted in medieval fantasy, down to video games and role-playing with his great-uncle Geoffrey. It helped him escaped the tumult of fights in his family, especially over a horse named Bantling Boy his grandfather Colonel Hartley so prized. But Colonel Hartley was his biological father, Hartley having raped his mother Joanna Craxton while she was nursing for him and got her pregnant with Peter. The Catholic blended family refused divorce and abortion, so Peter was born and Joanna was bribed with payouts for her silence by Angela Hartley, Geoffrey's sister. Angela's son Bruce Hartley, gardener Trevor Machin, and family doctor John Osgood all knew and were in on the secret.
As payment for their silence after the colonel died, Joanna, Bruce, Machin, and Dr. Osgood were all bequeathed Bantling Boy. When Sam Tate wanted to buy the horse, Bruce forced the issue to be moot by threatening to reveal the rape and Peter's conception. Peter overheard Joanna being screamed at by her husband Ray Craxton, hearing the truth about his parentage. Peter was scarred and heartbroken, which left him with recurring nightmares and a deep hatred of his family and their conspirators. To avenge himself, and to gain the ownership of Bantling Boy from being the remaining heir, he recruited Geoffrey, who was already in too regressed a mentality Peter took advantage off to oppress and abuse him.
Geoffrey already killed Bruce for harassing Angela and him over not selling Bantling Boy to save their home, Bantling Hall, and pay off debts Angela hated that the colonel left behind. Geoffrey snuck up behind him at his stables and bashed him about his head with a Farrier's hammer. Bantling Boy saw the whole thing and was right scared since. As they kept no secrets, Geoffrey told Peter about the murder. Peter used this, threatening to sell Geoffrey out if he didn't do more at Peter's instruction. To that end, Geoffrey crept onto the properties of the other heirs each night, smashing then with the same hammer one by one, but this time tying pennants over their mouths as gags. Dr. Osgood was lured form his car headlight being smashed, Machin was killed while taking out the rubbish outside of him pretending to be in a wheelchair, and Joanna was killed in Ray's blacksmith quarters. Geoffrey hid the hammer in the priest's hiding house each time, and Peter created a private video game on his computer, "The Secret of the Ring", with gravestones for each of the victims as a token of the murders.
Geoffrey was finally ordered to kill Angela, the final witness to the conspiracy. But as much as Geoffrey enjoyed playing with Peter, he loved his sister more. He took the hammer and tried to slaughter Peter with it, but Angela stopped him long enough for the police to arrest him and Geoffrey. Both of them confessed, with Peter dissociating into medieval language in his confession, and they were taken away in separate police cars.
Victims[]
All of the following were killed by Geoffrey on Peter's direction, except for the first murder, of which he is still complicit
- Bruce Hartley - Killed by a blow to the head with a Farrier's hammer.
- Dr. John Osgood - Killed by a blow to the head with a Farrier's hammer and had his mouth gagged with a piece of pennant.
- Trevor Machin - Killed by a blow to the head with a Farrier's hammer and had his mouth gagged with a piece of pennant.
- Joanna Craxton - Killed by a blow to the head with a Farrier's hammer and had her mouth gagged with a piece of pennant.
- Angela Hartley - Attempted to have Geoffrey killer; Geoffrey rebelled an tried to kill Peter instead, before they were both arrested.