The sons of “back-from-the-dead” canoeist John Darwin faced their mother in court today as they described how she had “betrayed” them.
Mark Darwin (32) told Teesside Crown Court his “world was crushed” when he was told his father was missing presumed dead off the Hartlepool coast in 2002.
He went on to tell the court of his anger at his mother Anne when he saw a photograph on the internet of his smiling parents in Panama four years later.
“I couldn’t believe the fact she knew he was alive all this time and I had been lied to for God knows how long.”
His brother Anthony (29) told the court that when he saw the photo he felt “betrayed”.
Anne Darwin (56) denies six counts of fraud and nine counts of money laundering.
The jury was told that Anthony was going to propose to his fiancee, Louise, during a holiday to Canada when his father disappeared. He broke short the trip and visited his mother at their home in Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool, to find her “crying and shaking”.
In the weeks that followed he searched the internet for any information about people missing at sea and contacted the missing persons register.
He said: “I knew the police would be doing these things, but it was a way of me doing something.”
When his father reappeared at a London police station last year, Anthony told the court he felt “disbelief and anger” because he originally thought it was someone pretending to be his dad.
When he saw his father in the police station he felt “surprised, amazed, still almost disbelieving”.
On December 4th last year the Panama photo of his parents emerged, but he told the court he initially thought it had been doctored.
It was only the next day when he read a newspaper article with his mother’s admission that the image was real that he finally believed it.
Asked how he felt when he realised, Anthony scratched his head and replied: “Upset, betrayed, I don’t know.”
His older brother Mark was at a wedding in Balham, south London, when he was telephoned by the police to say his father had walked into a police station.
He told the jury he had no idea his father was still alive up until he met him. He said he telephoned his mother, now living in Panama. He said: “I rambled for 10 minutes and explained my dad had turned up and I am sat next to him.
“She sounded really shocked that he had turned up after all these years.”
Mark agreed with David Waters QC, defending, that he had felt extreme trauma and anger towards his mother when the Panama photograph was published.
The prosecution alleges that Mrs Darwin, a former doctor’s receptionist, used “guile, convincing pretence, persistence and guts” to trick people into believing her husband had drowned and pull off a £250,000 con.
She denies the offences and has put forward the defence of “marital coercion” - claiming her husband forced her to go along with his plan.
PA