Darwins jailed for canoe fraud

Back-from-the-dead canoeist John Darwin and his wife Anne have each been jailed for more than six years for their £250,000 swindle.John Darwin was sentenced to six years and three months after admitting faking his own death and then claiming life insurance.Anne Darwin, who denied her role in the scam but was convicted by a jury at Teesside Crown Court in Middlesbrough, got six-and-a-half years.The couple stood with their hands clasped in front of them, separated by a burly security guard, as the sentences were handed down. They avoided eye contact with each other as they stood in the dock.The couple tricked the police, insurance companies and even their two sons Mark, 32, and Anthony, 29, into believing he drowned in the North Sea in 2002 - only for Mr Darwin to turn up at a London police station last year.They were undone by a photograph of the grinning couple taken in Panama four years after he disappeared.Their sons, who showed no emotion as Mrs Darwin was found guilty, had no direct view of their shamed parents from their position at the back of a crowded public gallery.Addressing the defendants, Mr Justice Wilkie said: "I accept you, John, were the driving force behind this deceit."You, Anne Darwin, perhaps initially unconvinced, played an instrumental rather than organising role."Nevertheless, you contributed to its success and played your part efficiently. In my judgment, you operated as a team, each contributing to the joint venture."The judge also said the "real victims" of the Darwins were their sons.He told the couple: "Although the sums involved are not as high as some reported cases, the duration of the offending, its multi-faceted nature and in particular the grief inflicted over the years to those who in truth were the real victims, your own sons, whose lives you crushed, make this a case which merits a particularly severe sentence."Mrs Darwin had claimed her "domineering" husband forced her to go through with the plan to con insurance and pension companies by faking his death at sea.But the jury rejected her defence and convicted her of six counts of fraud and nine of money laundering after a seven-day trial.The court heard Darwin tricked everyone, including her sons Mark and Anthony, with "superb aplomb", maintaining the lie for over five years while she and her former prison officer husband set up a new life in Panama.But her defence of "marital coercion" was undermined when the prosecution produced emails they sent to each other.The couple's elaborate plan involved Mr Darwin paddling out into the North Sea in March 2002 in a home-made canoe then going into hiding while his wife claimed he was missing at sea.Mrs Darwin turned on the tears when she broke the news of their father's disappearance to her sons, then declared him dead, conning insurers and pension funds out of the £250,000.The couple bought property in Panama which they hoped to transform into a canoeing centre.But Darwin flew back to the UK and handed himself into a central London police station, claiming he was suffering from amnesia.Mrs Darwin pretended to be shocked at the back-from-the-dead miracle but her story collapsed when a photograph was found on the internet showing the smiling couple posing in a Panama estate agents in 2006.

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ITN | July 23, 2008

Tags:. .collapsed. .broke. .tears. .instrumental. .declared