'Back-from-the-dead' canoeist's wife 'lied at length'

The wife of back-from-the-dead canoeist John Darwin “lied at length” to cover up her part in a £250,000 (€314,193) insurance con, a court heard today.

Even when presented with overwhelming evidence by police, Anne Darwin, aged 56, stuck resolutely to her story that she was a bereaved widow.

Prosecutor Andrew Robertson QC told the jury at Teesside Crown Court: “It is the Crown’s submission that far from dealing here with a ’shrinking violet’, we have here a determined, resolute woman who was able to lie and deceive at length - literally at length.

“Who was able to act out equally the emotions of a tragically bereaved widow and the emotions of a weak woman who was somehow bullied into telling lies for nigh on six years much, as she would have you believe, against her true nature.”

The grey-haired former doctor’s receptionist denies six counts of deception and nine of money-laundering which relate to her alleged activity following Mr Darwin’s disappearance in March 2002.

Mrs Darwin has put forward an initial defence of “marital coercion”, claiming her husband forced her to go along with his plan.