Grieving ‘widow’ used ‘guile’ to pull off drowning con

THE wife of the back-from-the-dead canoeist John Darwin used “guile, convincing pretence, persistence and guts” to trick people her husband had drowned and pull off a £250,000 (€313,335) con, a court heard yesterday.

Anne Darwin, aged 56, convinced insurance companies, a coroner and, “more poignantly”, her sons he had died in a canoe accident.

The former doctor’s receptionist put on a “great act” for 5½ years to persuade everyone her husband had drowned at sea on March 21, 2002, by their home near Hartlepool, and she was a grieving widow.