Darwins recieve jail sentences for canoe death fraud

JOHN and Anne Darwin were each jailed for more than six years today for carrying out a £250,000 con by faking his death in a canoeing accident.

The 56-year-old wife was convicted by a jury at Teesside Crown Court of six counts of fraud and nine of money laundering today, while the husband admitted fraud at an earlier hearing.

Anne Darwin received six and a half years in jail.

Her husband got six years and three months.

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.

GUILTY SECRET OF 'WELL-TO-DO' COUPLE
By Rod Minchin, PA

For a couple who liked to portray themselves as well-to-do, money difficulties must have been hard to accept.

John Darwin drove a £48,000 Range Rover with the "cherished" personalised number plate D9 JRD, which stood for John Ronald Darwin.

He bragged to anyone who would listen that he was well on the way to becoming a millionaire.

Mr Darwin also dreamed up schemes to make even more money, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Among his plans were snail breeding, making garden gnomes, running market stalls, writing computer games and also dabbling on the stock market.

So to find himself thousands of pounds in debt and facing the threat of losing everything he had worked for was hard to come to terms with.

Financial difficulties can lead to desperate measures and John Darwin decided to fake his own death.

A police source said: "Mr and Mrs Darwin liked to portray themselves as well-to-do.

"About a year before the disappearance we have evidence that the Darwins were in serious financial difficulty.

"Letters from the bank started quite friendly – 'Dear John and Anne' – but as the months passed, the letters became more formal.

"It was reaching the point that these two people could not survive financially on their income.

"We know that about a month or two before the January disappearance the banks were not going to extend Mr Darwin's credit facility.

"We know they couldn't pay back the amount owed and did not have enough money to pay the bills."

For the police, piecing together their financial difficulties was quite easy as Mr Darwin kept an Excel spreadsheet on his computer revealing the full financial black hole he faced.

They had 13 different credit cards and owed a total of £64,000 on them. The credit card companies were demanding minimum repayments on these debts of £1,700 per month.

In addition to 3 and 4 The Cliff in Seaton Carew, the Darwins owned 12 terrace properties across the north east of England, each worth between £20,000 and £30,000.

These properties were bought with a £245,000 mortgage from the Yorkshire Bank, which was on favourable terms and was interest-only for the first six months.

The Yorkshire Bank extended that period once, but refused a further extension and it turned the couple down when they requested a £20,000 loan.

An analysis of the Darwins' finances showed that they had outgoings of £6,700 every month, which consisted of £5,000 mortgage repayments and £1,700 in credit card repayments.

John Darwin earned £1,300 a month from his job as a prison officer and his wife was paid £747 a month from her part-time job as a doctor's receptionist.

In addition, the rental income from their property portfolio brought in another £3,000. It meant they were losing £1,700 a month and were close to going bust.

A police source said: "Any reasonable person who finds themselves in the Darwins' position would sell their properties to realise the debt.

"Instead they hatched this plot. Mr and Mrs Darwin liked to portray themselves as well-to-do and it was an image that they found difficult to move away from.

"It would have been very easy for them to put their properties up for sale."

Instead, the Darwins hatched their "Reggie Perrin" plan whereby Mr Darwin would fake his own death and Mrs Darwin would cash in his life insurance policies.

Their deception totalled £250,000 and included making a £25,000 claim on a policy with Unat Direct Insurance Ltd, which had only begun four months before Mr Darwin disappeared.

After John Darwin walked into a London police station, officers began unravelling their complicated finances in Panama.

Mrs Darwin had bought an apartment in Panama City, which was worth 56,000 US dollars (£28,000), and spent 389,789 US dollars (£198,000) on land to build a canoeing centre for tourists.

Continuing Mr Darwin's love of large cars, the couple drove around in a 45,000 US dollars (£23,000) Toyota Land Cruiser.

There were also two bank accounts in Panama – containing 319 US dollars (£160) and 220 US dollars (£110) respectively – a Yorkshire Bank account with £2,300, two HSBC bank accounts holding £60 and £550, and two HSBC bank accounts in Jersey with £1,800 US dollars (£900) and 100 US dollars (£50).

The next step for the police is to use the Proceeds of Crime Act to seize the couple's assets in Panama.

The fraud was originally worth £250,000 but police believe it is now worth double that with the Darwins' assets overseas totalling nearly one million US dollars (£500,000).

"We will pursue them through the Proceeds of Crime Act. All of the life they have built in Panama has been on the back of criminal activity," the source said.

FAMILY TORN APART BY DEATH SCAM
By Tom Wilkinson, PA

John and Anne Darwin's cruel deception hurt their family more than the financial institutions they defrauded.

Relatives were kept in the dark that John was very much alive.

His 91-year-old father Ronald, who has been in poor health for 20 years, was tormented by the thought that his oldest son had drowned in the sea where he had so often played as a boy.

The couple's sons Anthony, 29, and Mark, 32, sat in the public gallery with their partners throughout their mother's trial.

Giving evidence for the prosecution, Mark said he knew his mother had lied when he saw a photograph of his smiling parents taken in a Panama estate agents.

"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," he said.

Anthony said he thought the image was faked and had been doctored by an internet prankster.

It was only when he read a newspaper confession by his mother that he realised he had been cruelly duped.

Asked how he felt at that moment, Anthony scratched his head and replied: "Upset, betrayed, I don't know."

Mark travelled from his home in Basingstoke, Hampshire, to comfort his mother in the days after his father's disappearance.

"She flung her arms around me, she said 'He's gone, I think. I have lost him'.

"She wouldn't stop crying for ages. We just stood in the drawing room doorway. It crushed my world."

In the days after their parents' arrests in December last year, Mark and Anthony issued a statement in which they disowned their parents as the happy story of John's re-appearance turned sour.

They said: "How could our mam continue to let us believe our dad had died when he was very much alive?"

By coincidence, Mark Darwin left his job with E C Harris, an international property consultants in London, the day before his father reappeared, having worked his notice.

And in 2006 the bedsit property next to the couple's seafront home, which Darwin had used as a hideaway, was transferred into Mark's name.

But police said both sons were completely unaware of the scam.

Detective Inspector Andy Greenwood, who led the investigation, said: "They feel very let down and they feel betrayed by the two people who they could trust in their life the most."

In the witness box, Mrs Darwin explained why she had flung her arms around Mark and wept.

"I had to make it look realistic and I was upset."

She said she pleaded with her husband to allow her to come clean.
As Mrs Darwin prepared to fly back from Panama, she told reporters she hoped her sons would forgive her.

She said: "They knew nothing. They thought John was dead. Now they are going to hate me."

Anthony's father-in-law Mark Tilley, 58, said his son-in-law was ill with grief when Darwin disappeared.

Anthony and his wife Louise were in Canada when Darwin vanished.

Mr Tilley said: "They had to fly back when it happened and pay their own way. You wouldn't do that if you knew what was going on. He is a very nice, quiet young man.

"He was devastated by it and was quite ill for a year afterwards."
Darwin's father suffered a stroke 20 years ago. Since the scandal emerged, former builder Ronald Darwin has also had pneumonia.

He has left County Durham and moved in with his other son David in Barnet, north London.

John Darwin's 80-year-old aunt Margaret Burns, who looked after Ronald for many years, said he was tormented by thoughts of his beloved son drowning.

"But he was also convinced his son was alive.

"Did he have some kind of vision? I don't know."

Ronald was delighted when his son came back from the dead. He said at the time: "I always thought he would turn up."

His joy did not last long. He found out about his son's arrest in the Hartlepool Mail.

Clasping his head in his hands, he said: "Oh my God."