Back-from-the-dead canoeist's wife heads back to UK

The wife of back-from-the-dead canoeist John Darwin was on her way back to the UK tonight to face the music and beg her sons’ forgiveness after they severed contact with their parents.

Anne Darwin reportedly wept when she heard her sons’ Anthony and Mark’s reaction to how she and her husband appear to have pretended to them, and to the world, that he was dead.

The brothers released a statement saying they had been through a “rollercoaster of emotions” since Saturday, taking them from elation to the depths of despair.

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

“We have not spoken to either of our parents since our dad’s arrest and at this present time we want no further contact with them.”

Cleveland Police were tonight granted a further 12 hours to continue quizzing Mr Darwin.

He was arrested on Tuesday night after reappearing five and a half years after going missing.

Still in Panama until last night, when immigration officials say she left the country, Mrs Darwin pleaded for her children’s forgiveness, according to the Daily Mail.

She said: “Who can blame them? I lied to them, my own sons. What sort of mother am I?”

Mrs Darwin, 55, initially expressed her delight that her husband was alive and well but her story was quickly shattered when a picture of the couple together last year emerged.

Confronted with the photograph showing them in an apartment in Panama, she had to admit it showed her husband – four years after he apparently died.

It is thought the couple were preparing for a new life together in Panama but why Mr Darwin re-appeared and presented himself at a London police station last weekend remains unclear.

The 57-year-old was arrested at his son’s house in Basingstoke, Hants, on Tuesday night and taken back up to the North East yesterday for questioning.