Fraudster Anne Darwin has agreed to repay nearly £600,000 (€664,000) from the faked death scam she carried out with her husband, a court heard today.
The British couple conned financial institutions out of around £250,000 (€276,000) after John Darwin vanished in March 2002 while paddling his canoe in the North Sea near his home in Seaton Carew, Hartlepool.
He was charged last in 2007 after walking into a police station claiming amnesia. His wife had reported him missing in 2002 after he failed to return to their home and he was thought to have drowned at sea in a canoeing accident. The broken remains of his red kayak were discovered a few weeks later.
Anne Darwin was jailed for six-and-a-half years last year after a jury found her guilty of six counts of fraud and nine of money laundering. Her husband was jailed for six years and three months after admitting seven charges of deception.
The couple, of The Cliff, Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool, embarked on a new life in Panama after Mr Darwin faked his death in March 2002 by vanishing off the coast. The pair’s ruse was blown apart when a photo of the couple in Panama turned up on the internet.
During the trial at Teesside Crown Court in July last year, the jury heard the couple tricked the police, a coroner, financial institutions and even their sons Mark (34) and Anthony (31) into believing the former prison officer was dead.
The trial judge said their sons’ lives were crushed by the deception and that meant a severe sentence was necessary.
The court heard Mr Darwin obtained a passport in the name of dead Sunderland baby John Jones and lived secretly with his wife while they hatched a plot to emigrate to Panama and start a new life.
Mr Darwin travelled to Panama where they bought a flat and planned to set up an ecology tourism business together.
But just weeks after his wife sold off their UK properties and joined him in Panama in late 2007, he walked into a police station in London and said he had amnesia. The former doctors’ receptionist claimed during her trial that she was forced into the scam by her husband.
But a jury did not believe her and found her guilty on all counts. Earlier this year the couple both lost appeals against their jail sentences.
PA